Mushrooming

Fantastic looking but very, VERY
poisonous

My wonderful chums got me a foraging/ mushrooming day course for my birthday this year.

My mushrooming day began with me in a state of panic over my morning coffee, as I had it in my head that I would be the only person on the course and it would be me and a couple of mad old hippies traipsing through the Surrey countryside. Thank God those fears were unfounded and I had a fantastic day, exhausting though, clearly I am not used to spending a Saturday concentrating on lectures and rummaging about in the forest.

I am pleased to say I collected quite a horde, I am a rather sore loser and would have had quite a sulk if I had returned with an empty basket. I collected quite a number of ceps (otherwise known as porchini or penny bun) and a rather unappetising looking boletus which I have been assured is very tasty.

Lunch was provided and was very in-keeping with the foraging/ countryside theme. On the menu was watercress soup with cep and olive bread, game casserole (for which I did apologise to the bunnies when I came home for eating their cousin) followed by cranachan, all very tasty indeed.

Our hosts, Peter and Clifford had a back up plan in case we were unsuccessful in our hunt so had gathered a number of fungi which grow in fields (as opposed to our woodland hunt) for us to take home and I gladly took some of them home as well.

Field Mushrooms

The field mushrooms became our dinner that evening, most were just fried off with butter, garlic and parsley and served on ciabatta. For the puff balls I tried Clifford's recommendation of cutting a slice which looked not dissimiliar to a slice of bread, then drizzled with olive oil, some crushed garlic and fresh herbs and toasted under the grill, yum.

I wanted to preserve the ceps and boletus, so sliced them and they are drying on wire cooling racks in the warmest spot in the house I could find - which happens to be next to my other half's computer, which is drying them out nicely. I have since been looking into this and have found that many mushroomers prefer to blanch them in butter or oil and then freeze them, which I will be trying next time.

The day was organised by Peter Sibley and Clifford Davy of Wild Harvest www.wildharvest.com, highly recommended.