Obsessions part I (because there's a part II)

One exceptionally warm and wet autumn in North Yorkshire (was there any other kind, I now ask myself), I strolled out into the fields and found my very first wild mushrooms.  The pasture was full of grey saucer sized field mushrooms, and I went mad picking them.  Mushrooms on toast, mushroom ketchup, mushroom lasagne, stuffed mushrooms – we* ate mushrooms for weeks.  That was before I learnt to look closely for maggots, or I might have eaten less of that first crop.

But that was it, for me.  I got the mushroom hunting bug.  There’s something so essentially satisfying about food for free.  In fact, my ex, who at the time was still an ex-in-waiting, had a book of the very same title, “food for free”, although much of what it contained I wouldn’t have eaten if I’d been paid to.

Fired up with enthusiasm, I bought several mushroom field guides.  They weren’t immediately useful, for I almost never found any wild mushrooms other than field mushrooms in the UK, with the exception of ink caps, which were never popular with me due to their incompatibility with alcohol.  Although there was the famous time when we found two morel mushrooms growing on a remote footpath.  Because I can be a sickening goody two shoes at times, we only collected one of them, something I regretted as soon as it had been cooked (sautéed in butter and garlic) and eaten, and in fact ever since, as I’ve never found one again.

But the guides became useful.  An autumn trip through France and Spain introduced me to the parasol mushroom, first collected and cooked for me by a good friend.  Diced and sautéed in butter, shallots and garlic, and served on buttered toast, the parasol is still one of my favourite mushrooms.  France and Spain proved to be far more productive hunting grounds for mushrooms.  After the parasol mushrooms, my next acquisition was the saffron milk cap. 

I think of each of the mushrooms on my “I can identify this” list as an acquisition, because I’ve always had a healthy distaste for the thought of dying a painful, lingering but certain death from mushroom poisoning.  I need to be very, very sure that my identification is correct before that mushroom gets anywhere near my kitchenware, which usually involves a lot of studying conflicting pictures and if I’m lucky, consulting an expert.  But once sure, I never forget.  Thus, many of my acquisitions come with nice memories.

So one autumn, walking in  some pine woods in France, we met a man with a basket full of orange coloured wild mushrooms, and in our broken French asked for full details, which he provided at (incomprehensible for the most part) length.  Saffron milk caps got added to the list, which I like best sautéed with a little finely chopped onion and garlic, then simmered for about 30 minutes in red wine seasoned with Spanish paprika, a bay leaf or two, salt and pepper.  Slap in a bit of cream at the end to thicken the sauce and serve with buttery mashed potato.

Field and wood blewits were easy once I was living in Spain, as they’re as common as dirt, and easy to identify because of their thick blue stalks.  Plus, they grew in my orchard and field, which made life easier.  These are not my favourites, because their taste is so strong, almost perfumed.  If I have time, I slice them thinly and then thread them onto a string and hang them up to dry, because a little dried blewit crumbled into any stew is as good as or better than a stock cube.  But I don’t seem to have that kind of time any more.  These days, they get sautéed in, yes you’ve guessed it, butter and garlic, and frozen.  Used sparingly they make a good addition to any pasta dish – blewit and spinach lasagne is very nice.  The only other dish I find edible when used as a main ingredient is sautéed blewits between layers of fried onion and sliced potato with plenty of freshly ground pepper, drizzled with half a carton of more of cream once assembled, and baked in the oven.  You’re probably starting to form the (correct) opinion that I am at peace with my cholesterol levels.

Fairy ring mushrooms were equally easy, and get treated much the same way – preferably threaded whole on a string and dried, but if not, sautéed and frozen. Again, they’re nice for adding flavour to stews.

I was starting to add a new edible species a year to my tried and tested list.  And then we went on our camping holiday to the French Pyrenees.  Camping in the loose sense of the word – we slept in the back of the car.  To backtrack a little, when we moved to Spain, we walked here.  Part of that included walking along the Pyrenees on the GR10.   Such frustration as I have never known before or since – we were there in autumn and saw a wealth of wild mushrooms I had never seen before at that point.  With no cooking equipment, and no strength to add another ounce to our already overweight backpacks, these delights had to be left for others to collect, and collect them they did.  No matter how remote we were, it was almost impossible to crap behind a bush in peace without being disturbed by a Frenchman carrying a walking stick with two metal prongs at the end for gently shifting fallen leaves, in search of fungal bliss.  The French seem to appreciate wild mushrooms almost as much as I do.

So anyway, we decided to go back one year to the Pyrenees, with a car, a camping gas, frying pan, butter, cream and garlic.  Mushroom hunting and eating was our holiday plan, and it worked: hardly a day passed without a wild mushroom meal.  I picked ceps beside a quiet lake (don’t like them much – too slimy for my tastes), horn of plenty in a wood beside a tiny winding lane (sautéed you know how, and finished with a grind of pepper and drizzle of cream – my favourite), parasols in farmers’ field, saffron milk caps among the pine trees…

Back home, we added the king oyster mushroom to our list, a kind of oyster mushroom that grows on thistle roots.  And the day I found a giant puffball was a total celebration.  Dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, shallow fried until golden and served with tartare sauce, it was a delight.  Slippery jacks, on the other hand, were a total disappointment, for all they appear to be related to the highly prized boletus family.  Naturally for a disgusting mushroom, they are extremely common but not worth eating in my opinion.  Slimy and tasteless, their only virtue is that they do not kill you.

And then we separated.

*"we" refers to my ex.