Thursday, October 26, 2006

Mushroom Foray in the New Forest

Every year Peter Jordon and his wife Val (Tasty Mushroom Partnership) run a couple of forays in the New Forest. This year we were able to get down to the cottage that weekend and take them out for a meal to repay their hospitality from a couple of years ago (see "How do you know they're toadstools").

Saturday evening we took them to Plummers in Ringwood High Street for a very enjoyable meal. Sunday we joined the other 20 or so mushroom hunters for the morning foray. After a successful morning's picking we all had a lunch of mushroom soup followed by mushroom croustade (cooked by Peter and Val). At that point we dipped out and went back to Wandsworth with our haul: Sunday roast with fried Ceps (aka Penny Bun aka Porcini) and Monday night soup with the rest.

basketful of mushroomstrug of mushrooms


edible mushrooms book cover

Peter very kindly gave us a signed copy of his excellent new book "Field Guide to Edible Mushroom of Britain and Europe". You can order your own *signed* copy via his website.
at

3 comments:

  1. Rosa1:31 am

    Oh, I had my first black truffle in Zurich. It was scrumptious! Thanks for jogging my memory. I haven't posted on Zurich yet, will have to remember to put that in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ballpoint Wren4:34 pm

    I do love mushrooms, but I would NEVER be brave enough to try to find edible mushrooms in the wild. NEVER.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mark McLellan10:08 am

    Rosa. Glad you enjoyed the black truffle. It is an odd flavour, an acquired taste. The jury is still out as far as I am concerned.

    Bonnie. That is the benefit of going on a properly tutored foray. Peter checks out your finds as you go along and double-checks the baskets at the end so you know you have edible specimens. We have been on half a dozen forays over the last few years and can now confidently identify six or eight edible varieties. And the motto is "if in doubt, leave it out".

    ReplyDelete