County Variations How widely the counties, or even the parishes,
of England vary! In some of the Home Counties during this strange year residents have lamented a total absence of mushrooms. They have passed a year without tasting the most delectable of flavours and most wholesome of foods. In the South there was a similar absence, but the deficiency was made good in November. At a date when as a rule the harvest is a thing of the past, there was even a glut. At the edge of the New Forest, by the Hampshire-Dorset boundary, the November crop seems to have surpassed all records. On the subject of mushrooms, the search for truffles (beloved by all gourmets), for which the New Forest was once famous, seems to have fallen into desuetude. It is surprising that in these days of austerity and low living (if not high thinking), when such unsavoury birds as star- lings and even owls have been bought and sold, there should not have been an extension of the vogue for various mushrooms, most of which are pleasant to the taste. The neglect of the champignon is perhaps the least reasonable. It is not only common and good to eat, but it is one of the only sorts that will keep without processing or preservatives. Preserved mushrooms also are neglected. Did not one of our more famous polar explorers once say to me that the most exquisite food he ever tasted was an omelette made of penguins' eggs and powdered mushrooms that had lain for years in a dump of a previous explorer?
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