Adventures in Food

I was walking home the other day when I saw a huge orangey-yellow fungus growing in a the nook of a tree in our road (I think its a type of birch but I am not great on tree species. that is my best guess from my new tree book). So I bethought myself to investigating this large orange putrescence. The mushroom books tell me it is Chicken of the Woods ( Laetiporus sulphureus ) This extraordinary fungus is apparently - very occasionally - toxic - with hallucinations and upset stomach. Hallucinations etc So I have approached this particular culinary adventure with some trepidation and tested a small sample first before eating it for a meal. Even though the books say it can't be mistaken for anything else, I still am a bit nervous about having got it right. Nice for lunch No suffering followed the initial test so I have just eaten up the lot for lunch. I fried in in small pieces with olive pesto, mackerel, a squeeze of lemon and some balsamic vinegar. As you can see on the right, I had ...

Hey the River Cottage folk liked my amethyst deceivers, check it out (scroll down a bit, my pics are near the bottom of the page). If they are super nice to me I might let them have my squirrel stew recipe. Or maybe they can just read it on the page below...

The little purple one was the edible and rather delicious Amethyst Deceiver . The River Cottage handbook claims that they are generic, "filler" mushrooms. I don't agree. They are a bit tough and chewy but that was a good thing. I spent ages poring over these little lilac beauties thinking they might be Lilac Fibrecaps, in which case a very nasty dose of pretty much everything was in store. They are called Deceivers because they have a near relative that is edible but takes on a thousand forms, making it very tricky to recognise. Happily the story ends well with me having a nice purple treat and a full tummy. The one in the background was Charcoal buirner ( Russula cyanoxantha ) or simliar, but it turned out to be full of little mushroom grubs. All the other mushies we brought home were poisonous - or couldn't be identified but were similar to known poisonous ones.

Yesterday we went mushrooming in Epping Forest. We didnt find much to eat, but I was amazed how many different kinds of mushrooms there are when you start looking. We found at least fifteen different kinds. I will put some photos up. We did get some Amethyst Deceivers which are edible, but there arent many of them and the River Cottage book suggests they are not a top mushroom but being pretty can be good fillers or with a nice saffron risotto. We got lots of poisonous ones and a couple I really cannot figure out what they are. Watch this space for photos or upload your own in the comments!