Food for thought
Fungal forays
Simon Courtauld
0 iie Sunday morning, a year ago, I joined a party of two dozen enthusiasts for what was described as a fungal foray in Savernake Forest. We were accompanied by Roger Phillips, the distinguished mycologist and botanist, who was able to identify — occasionally he had to refer to his own book on the subject — the 20 or so different fungi that we found. I had no idea there were so many. None was poisonous, but when we got back to East Grafton village hall to enjoy the fruits of our labours, Mr Phillips said that only two species, the puffball and a rather sinister-looking little purple thing called the amethyst deceiver, were really worth eating.
Fortunately we had gathered plenty of these. which Mr Phillips then proceeded to stir-fry with garlic and parsley. They were delicious, of course, though it was a pity we had failed to find any chanterelles or ceps, which are generally held to be the best of the woodland mushrooms.
My notes record that I found members of the russula, lactarius and clitocybe families, and an ugly phallic species which produces a puff of fungal smoke when touched. I don't think I have ever seen a seriously poisonous mushroom, but I am told that anything with white gills should be avoided. In France, where they are much more adventurous about eating fungi, you have only to take a doubtful specimen to a pharmacy, and there will be someone qualified to tell you whether it is edible or not.
Cultivated mushrooms are grown from
mycelium spawn. which I know nothing about, except that the white fluff which appears on mouldy bread is called mycelium. Compost made from horse manure and wheat straw is ideal for growing mushrooms, preferably in a wooden box, away from sunlight and in a temperature of about 50°F. It sounds easy enough, but mushrooms are unpredictable things and sometimes they just don't come up.
In supermarkets these days you may find the oyster and shiitake varieties of mushroom, as well as the cultivated pinkor brown-gilled field mushrooms, whether button or flat-capped. The field mushroom (agaricus campestris) is the one wild species which everyone is happy to pick. After a rather dry summer, this may not be a very good season for them; I went to a favourite field last week and found none. But they can appear in the most unlikely places. A correspondent wrote to the Evening Standard some years ago to report, in the first week of October, that he had just picked enough mushrooms in Berkeley Square, central London, to use for this morning's breakfast, tonight's casserole and the weekend's coq au yin'.
Mushrooms also go well with vegetables: a purée of parsnips, for instance, or artichoke hearts, or sauteed with celery. The stalks and peelings should be retained for soup or to make duxelles, a stuffing to which chopped shallots and parsley are added. The large field mushrooms are best cooked, in my opinion, with olive oil and garlic in the oven, then spread with soured cream and eaten on toast with a good shake from the Worcester sauce bottle. And I have recently enjoyed a poached egg covered with hollandaise sauce on a slice of lightly grilled giant puffball.
Mushroom ketchup is not something I keep in the store cupboard, probably because I have tended to equate it with the brown sauces and tomato ketchup served with junk food. But now that I learn that mushroom ketchup has been known to English cooking for at least 200 years, I am rather tempted to make some. Slice the raw mushrooms, sprinkle them with salt and leave for a few days, then drain off the liquid and boil it with black pepper, ginger, nutmeg and cloves until it forms a syrup.
One could go on to discuss truffles, but they don't seem to be gathered in this country any more. I cannot really understand why truffle-hunting, with dogs, came to an end in England in the 1930s. Does this highly prized fungus no longer grow on the roots of our beech trees? For those who wish, and can afford, to buy the little beauties, L'Aquila of Islington, north London (020-7837 5555), will provide — together with a truffle recipe book. I doubt if I shall be adding truffles to my omelettes, but I do hope to fill one this month with the shaggy inkcaps which should soon be appearing here, nourished by the rotting stump of an old horse-chestnut tree at the bottom of the drive.
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