Mushroom farming: it's an art

After reading through the news about growing exotic mushrooms from used coffee grounds, I wanted to take a look how mushrooms are grown on "normal" farms. I think the video below gives a great introduction.

I'm not quitting my day job just yet... but it is so tempting!

Have a good weekend everyone, and see you next week for a new foraging report, recipes and more.

Losing a few dress sizes - easy

These guys will help you lose
weight... in all the right places!

Today being Thursday, the fungi news day, I surfed the web for anything mushroom-related, and went across  two sets of stories. The first one was cultivating mushrooms with discarded coffee grounds is becoming a profitable business in several UK cities. Hmm, I'm more of an information-producing type than goods-producing one, but it is one line of production I might be interested in. After all, there are lots of coffee shops in my town that could supply me with free substrate, and there are also a fair number of restaurants who might be interested in organically produced exotic mushrooms...

The second set of stories was about the latest diet craze, apparently endorsed by numerous celebrities that lets you lose inches off your hips while keeping your bust the same size. Also, lose weight.

Now, mushrooms are very low calorie food, so no wonder that substituting them for meat allows you to shed pounds. At 16 kcal per 100 grams they are at the same level as salad leaves, celery and cucumbers. In fact, they are a negative calorie food because it takes more energy to digest them than they yield as the result. If you don't believe me, go to a seaside town and watch a herring gull as it deals with a discarded sandwich. It would eat bread, ham, cheese, drops of mayo, everything. Except salad and cucumbers, which it carefully puts aside. I'm sure if there were sandwiches in existence with raw mushrooms and celery, they would be scorned, too. Birds have no time for zero-calorie food because their digestive systems are small and their exercise routine is such that professional human sports don't even come close. Lifting your body off the ground using just muscle power is no joke.

Anyway, back to the humans and their news stories. I wholeheartedly approve of a mushroom diet. In fact, I got a pack of baby button mushrooms today so that I could eat them tomorrow at lunch. However, I just wish those journalists would stop calling mushrooms "vegetables". As in:

"Not only do mushrooms help with weight loss – the super vegetable can help improve your looks too."

What can I say...

MUSHROOMS ARE NOT VEGETABLES!

Image credits:
Button mushrooms, Agaricus bisporus
Paris Tuileries Garden Facepalm statue

Boletus badius, the cep's less glorious cousin

Today's highlight is of Boletus badius, commonly known as bay bolete, which in my opinion is one of the most underrated wild edible mushrooms.

It must be because, due to the similar form and colour of its cap, it has to live in the perpetual shadow of its glorious cousin, the cep. Many a forager rushed to a brown dome half-hidden in leaf litter, only to discover a less attractive mushroom and be sorely disappointed.

But is their disappointment really justified?

Ceps are beautiful, can reach impressive sizes and keep their white flesh colour whether they are fried, marinated or dried. They definitely are the best mushroom aesthetically.

However, if we take a more pragmatic point of view, the taste and texture of bay boletes are indistinguishable from ceps, with an added bonus that they are also usually free of mould and maggots, even in case of very mature specimens. They are also much less fussy about their habitat (and therefore more common), and keep fruiting until winter months, when all other fungal presence in the forest is long gone. Are you not in love with them yet? Because I am.

They do stain blue when bruised, but so what. It doesn't scare a seasoned mushroom hunter like myself. There is just one thing I wish was different about them: unlike ceps that can be seen on the forest floor from twenty metres or more, these guys like hiding, and you normally won't notice one until you practically step on it.

So next time you see this wonderful mushroom, don't scorn it. Put it lovingly in the basket, and treat it just like a cep. It deserves no less.

Image credit:
Boletus badius

Chanterelle and samphire salad

As every successful mushroom hunter knows, while collecting it is important to stay attuned to the spirit world and keep your thoughts proper (i.e., fungi-directed). Letting your mind wander results in stopping finding wild food and becoming food to bloodsucking insects instead.

There is a very thin line indeed between a mushroom gatherer and a patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder. In fact, you almost need to have the latter to be any good at fungi foraging. Attunement to forest spirits must be kept in check, too, or there is a very real danger of your doctor insisting you need hefty doses of haloperidol, or whatever they use to treat psychotic patients these days.

In short: it's the edge of a blade. Tread with caution.

However, when within the space of a few hours I see an article in a newspaper with chanterelle and exotic weed recipe, then find just the right quantity of chanterelles, and finally see that same exotic weed in the supermarket, it must mean something, right? The Universe is definitely trying to tell me that I must cook it, and therefore I obey.

The ingredients

Ingredients:

• 50g of pancetta 
• some olive oil 
• 250g chanterelles
• 100g of samphire 
• Salt, pepper

Process:

Prepare the chanterelles. In an ideal world, it is sufficient to wipe them with a damp cloth, but in reality chanterelles come covered in sand, twigs and slug poo, so I do have to wash them. Putting them on a kitchen towel removes some of the moisture, but still not enough. The original recipe says, cook pancetta first, then add chanterelles, but if the chanterelles need to be washed, I recommend to amend the sequence. Thus, cook the chanterelles in a little olive oil on medium high heat until the liquid has evaporated, then remove them from the pan, cook the pancetta until it releases its fat, return the chanterelles to the pan, add salt and pepper, and after 2-3 minutes add the samphire. One more minute, stirring constantly, and you are done!

I quite liked the combination of pancetta and chanterelles, but not so sure about samphire: it's too salty, and it tastes like seaweed. Maybe next time I'll replace it with something else and see if it makes the dish more edible. Universe, you know what? You were wrong! 

Looks better than it tastes, but maybe it'll find its fans.

Horses and mosquitoes

Saturday's trip to the forest confirmed one thing: mushrooms do not like it if you let your thoughts wander. And unfortunately it was one of those days when I just had too much on my mind.

First thing, I found an excellent spot with early blackberries, all juicy and sweet and ready to be eaten. You see, plants don't really care if you are distracted. They are just there for the picking.

First find of the day

And next to them, a variety of mushroom that equally was not so fussy about my state of mind. Humble grassland fungi, very plant-like in this respect.

Hiding in the weeds, fairy ring champignon (Marasmius oreades), at your service

After that, unfortunately, things went rather downhill. Going along my usual mossy paths, I met a fair number of ceps, all were mouldy and maggot-ridden, with the exception of one specimen:

Yours truly, king of all mushrooms (a slight slug issue apparent, but no matter)

I picked it on a secret path that is used by only myself and roe deer and lots of ticks. Got a couple of tick bites there, and my problems were just starting.

Exiting the deer path, I met a competitor. On horseback! She looked at my basket, and said, "Oh, don't go that way, I've just beat you to the mushrooms." She had a bin bag (BIN BAG? Sacrilege!) containing three ceps.

I should have listened to her. I should have gone another way. But I thought, come on, what can you possibly see from horseback? So I went the way she came from. And all I found were mosquitoes. And some midges. And then some more mosquitoes. My skin was soaked with jungle-strength insect repellent, and do you think those insects hesitated even a little bit? Think again!..

With three mushrooms in my basket, I was about to give up the hunt and head home, when my wet feet and itchy bites and frustration finally made me to concentrate. At that moment, I suddenly realised that I was standing at the beginning of a forest clearing that I never explored before. It also looked much drier than the previous section of the woods, and there was no sign of mosquitoes. That was obviously the way to go.

In under a minute, I found several bay boletes (Boletus badius), a mushroom scorned by many pickers, but no worse than cep in my opinion:

Often underestimated, but always worthwhile: bay bolete

Its species highlight is coming this week, so no more about it just now. With basket already half full, I proceeded along the clearing, only to see this:

Which way?

The moss reached to my knees! Fallen trees seemed to block the path entirely, but before heading back I decided to take a break and eat an energy bar and have a sip of water. Sitting down, I noticed that the clearing continued beyond the blockage. It seems, forest spirits were smiling on me again.

In the end, the clearing led me to a known path, with lots of chanterelle spots, while avoiding the current forest management works. I'll write about them someday. It's soul-destroying though, so it won't be any time soon.

In the end, it was a decent trip, with almost a basketful. The chanterelle spots yielded about 500g of edibles, so an appropriate recipe tomorrow is definitely in order. Stay tuned for that, and meanwhile, don't eat any strange mushrooms!

Yield of the day: bay boletes (top left), scarletina boletes (top), ceps (top right), chanterelles (centre),
two saffron milk caps and one slippery jack on top of them (bottom right), a handful of blackberries (right), and
assorted fungi for identification and spore prints (bottom left)