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Brighton Food Festival Masterclass 2014

Email: geoffdann@hotmail.com
Phone: 07964 569715

29/07/2014

I’ve had a relatively quiet summer from a foraging point of view, apart from a somewhat surreal filming session with a Japanese TV company making a documentary about “Harry Potter and Celtic/Druidic influences on witch culture in the UK”. They wanted me to find them “a mushroom big enough for a witch to sit on.” They ended up filming a large Ganoderma, which was not only big enough but strong enough for a TV presenter to actually sit on. When I left they were filming a Scottish witch chanting at the foot of an ancient yew tree. Interesting work if you can get it!

Brighton Food Festival Masterclass 2013 (Copyright Julia Claxton)

There’s been a steady stream of reports of autumn species fruiting throughout the summer – Hedgehog fungi in May, Chanterelles in June, Penny Buns in July – but mushroom season proper is nearly upon us. My first engagement of the autumn is going to be a masterclass at the Brighton Food Festival on Hove Lawns on Saturday September 6th.

Clockwise from top left: Wood Hedgehog, Oyster Mushroom, Bay Bolete, Penny Bun, Blusher, Slippery Jack, Tiger Sawgill, Winter Chanterelle. (Copyright Julia Claxton)

(Copyright Julia Claxton)

The masterclass will involve a hands-on introduction to whatever edible and poisonous fungi are around in early September. You will see from the picture on the left that there was already quite a lot around at that time last year. Clockwise from top left: Wood Hedgehog, Oyster Mushroom, Bay Bolete, Penny Bun, Blusher, Slippery Jack, Tiger Sawgill, Winter Chanterelle.

People will have a chance to experience the mushrooms close-up – there’s nothing like touching them and smelling them to help you identify them yourself in the wild. I will also, of course, be cooking them up so you can have a chance to taste them.

Website and booking details can be found here: http://brightonfoodfestival.com/events/sussex-foraging-fungi-masterclass/.

Agrocybe rivulosa is good to eat

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Email: geoffdann@hotmail.com
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26/04/2014

Agrocybe rivulosa, April 2013, near Hastings

Agrocybe rivulosa, April 2014, near Hastings

The vast majority of species of wild fungi fall into the category of “edibility unknown” and are destined to remain that way for the forseeable future. After all, who wants to be the first to try? And, in most cases, what would be the point?

We know about the really dangerous ones, for the obvious reason that if a fungus is deadly poisonous then, even if it is quite rare, enough unfortunate people will have eaten it over the years that its toxicity is brought to the attention of the medical profession. All of the species that we can be confident enough to recommend people for eating have been traditionally eaten somewhere in the world, and that means we can be reasonably sure that there are no long-term problems associated with their consumption, and that if a significant proportion of the population experiences some sort of allergic reaction then we’ll know about that too. They also tend to be reasonably common (at least somewhere) and not tricky to identify or easily confused with something deadly.

This still leaves a vast selection of species whose edibility is not known, and there are various reasons for this. Some of them taste unpleasant enough that nobody in their right mind would even want to eat them (although this didn’t stop the Chinese, who are recorded to have traditionally eaten all sorts of things that don’t agree with a western palate). Others are too tough to digest, or too small or flimsy to bother with. A very large number of them are either sufficiently uncommon or hard to identify that the data on edibility simply doesn’t exist, even if people have eaten them in the past, and there is no point in experimenting now to determine the edibility of uncommon or hard-to-identify fungi. Still more are out of bounds because they are related to species known to be highly toxic, making them too risky to experiment with.

Agrocybe rivulosa, April 2014, near Hastings, Sussex. These ones are a bit past their best for eating.

Agrocybe rivulosa is just about the only the species I can think of that falls into none of these categories. It was first scientifically described only a decade ago, having turned up out of the blue in Rotterdam, Holland. Since then it has spread rapidly, and can now be found all over north-west Europe growing prolifically on its chosen habitat of of woodchips. I can find no information about its edibility, presumably because nobody has tried eating it. However, it has a close relative that is edible and very tasty. A. cylindracea – the Poplar Fieldcap – is a choice wild mushroom that has long been cultivated in Asia. Not only does it belong to the same genus as A. rivulosa, but also shares a similar habitat. Most members of the genus are terrestrial, but A. cylindracea, like A. rivulosa, is a wood-muncher (although it prefers logs and roots).

Not all Agrocybes are considered edible, but none of them are dangerously poisonous either. The same cannot be said of their more distant relatives. They belong to a large and diverse family known as the Stophariaceae, which includes the very common, very bitter and significantly toxic Sulphur Tuft (Hypholoma fasciculare), as well as the highly-hallucinogenic Psilocybe species – the “magic mushrooms”. However, even these aren’t in the same league of toxicity as the Amanita, Galerina, Cortinarius and Inocybe species that can kill you in one serving. So, all things considered, it seems unlikely that A. rivulosa is dangerous, and there is a decent probability of it being delicious, as well as common, easy to identify and big enough to be worth collecting. It also has the major advantage of appearing from spring onwards, so it is around when not many other wild fungi can be found. Finally, it is very likely that this species could easily be cultivated.

This was all too much for me to resist and when I found some a couple of days ago I decided the time had come to take the plunge. I had a couple of large caps yesterday, and having suffered no ill-effects I ate the rest of them with my breakfast this morning. And I am happy to report that they are indeed delicious – very similar to the Poplar Fieldcap.

Agrocybe rivulosa, showing the river-like striations on the cap from which it takes its name

No doubt I will be accused by some of irresponsibility for telling people they are edible. Have I been eating them for years? Nope. Have I tested them on a hundred people and made sure nobody had an allergic reaction? Nope. I have, however, established that they are tasty enough to be worth eating, and that, at least to me, they do not contain any immediately-acting toxins. It’s always possible they are one of the unusual cases where many years of repeated consumption is required before the toxicity is revealed, but these is no reason to believe this is likely. At the very least, I hope I have started the ball rolling. I’d be very interested to hear about other people who have tried eating this mushroom.

Agrocybe rivulosa is a fairly typical-looking member of its genus. It is about the size of a standard “shop mushroom”, although slightly less substantial. It has a cream cap, light brown gills and a ring. The name “rivulosa” refers to the river-like striations on the cap.

Mmmmmmm…

Chicken of the Woods / Dryad’s Saddle / April 2014

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Email: geoffdann@hotmail.com
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24/04/2014

It’s a hard life. Day after day traipsing around lush woodland cloaked with bluebells and wood anemone in search of edible fungi and not finding any. Almost makes me wish I had my old day job back. Not.

It has felt a little like being a beginner once again though. Having moved from Brighton to Hastings last summer, I’m foraging in entirely new territory and that means I don’t know anywhere round here where I know I can find certain things if they are about at all. So I have spent the past three weeks searching in vain for a local source of St George’s Mushrooms (not even pretending to hope I’d come across the Holy Grail of some morels). I know via twitter and various forums I post on that people have been finding St George’s since February this year, although it would seem these finds are “outliers”, because there have not been a large number of sightings. Perhaps after two good years for this species we are due a poor one. But perhaps they have not been fooled by the early spring and they’ll start appearing en-masse at their “normal” time over the next couple of weeks.

Chicken of the Woods, photo taken 24/04/2014 near Hastings

Anyway – my luck has changed in the last two days. I may not have found what I was looking for, but I have started finding plenty of other stuff instead. These have included the cup fungus Peziza vesiculosa (Blistered Cup) and some Coprinopsis Inkcaps, both of unknown/disputed edibility, and two well-known edible species – Dryad’s Saddle and Chicken of the Woods. I’ve never found the latter in April before. It usually starts to appear about the end of May or the start of June. The one I found today was still very soft, and looked like it had been growing for no more than about a week.

Chicken of the Woods is one of the safest of the wild fungi for people to pick due to it not being confusable with anything poisonous. It does resemble a larger relative called Giant Polypore, but that species is only inedible because it is so tough and bitter. They are reasonably easy to distinguish by smell – Chicken of the Woods smells and tastes like chicken, and Giant Polypore doesn’t.

As for what to do with it, I’m yet to find anything that beats frying it in butter then adding double cream, chives, paprika, salt and pepper.

Happy hunting, stay safe and if anybody reasonably local can point me in the direction of some morels then I’d be happy to offer two free autumn foraging sessions in return!

Geoff

Spring Tide Shellfish Special

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Email: geoffdann@hotmail.com
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02/02/2014

Last year year spring came three weeks late. This year could not be more different – in fact down here on the south coast winter hasn’t arrived at all. If I recall correctly we have had just one just-about ground frost, back in the middle of December. Instead we’ve had the wettest January for over a century and much of the country is underwater. And if there wasn’t enough misery to go around, yesterday and today’s spring tides have made things even worse (“spring” here just means they are extreme – they are “springing about” – not anything to do with the seasons).

Geoff with some whelks. Spring low tide at Pett Level.

Still, it’s an ill tide that brings nobody any good. If there is a spring high tide keeping water in the rivers then there’s also a spring low tide, and that means an opportunity for a forager to get his or her hands on some shellfish that remain out of reach most of the time, even at low tide. This morning’s low tide was at half past seven, just as the light was good enough to go searching for razor clams at a local beach where I’ve seen razor clam shells. It just stopped raining as I left the house, tub of salt in hand. Unfortunately, I could find no key-hole-shaped razor-clam holes to pour the salt down.

However, my time was not wasted. Apart from it being a lovely way to start one’s Sunday, there is plenty of interest to be found on Pett Level beach at low tide. Probably the strangest is the exposed beach itself, which consists largely of a “carpet” of bits of ancient wood, the remains of a forest that stood there six millennia ago when sea levels were considerably lower. It has not been studied in any great detail, and very little is known about it. Not much use to a forager though.

The sandgaper (Mya arenaria). Britain’s largest clam.

Also not much use to a forager, one might think, is the wreck of a 70-cannon warship, The Anne, scuttled there in 1690 after the Battle of Beachy Head to prevent the French from getting hold of her. Worth a look though, and is it turned out, the best place to find shellfish on the whole beach. The exposed timbers were plastered with (apparently dead) starfish, but were also providing a home for some whelks. These are a rare treat for a forager, usually inhabiting deeper water and out of reach to anybody on foot. They were only just accessible and would have been safely back beneath the waves within an hour of the tide turning if I hadn’t nabbed them first.

Along with the whelks was one of the oddest of British shellfish: our largest clam, Mya arenaria, aka the sand-gaper. Tastes great, but it isn’t much of a looker. The problem? No way to avoid this – the problem is that it has what looks like a large, flaccid penis sticking out of its side. This also happens to be the tastiest part of the animal.

Whelks and sandgaper clam in red wine vinegar.

Anyway, I got one sand-gaper and enough whelks for a starter for two. They are easy enough to prepare. Leave them in a bowl of salty water for a few hours, changing the water a couple of times. Then boil the whelks for ten minutes, and steam the clam at the same time. Remove from shells, clean the clam, and serve with vinegar, salt and pepper. Yum.

2013: a vintage year for fungi

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05/12/2013

Horn of Plenty (Craterellus cornucopioides). October 2013.

All good things come to an end, and mushroom season 2013 has been one to remember; certainly the best since 2010, after the drought of 2011 and the washout of 2012, and better than 2010 for many species. I took my 35th and final group of the season out last Sunday (December 1st), and we were still finding winter chanterelles (Craterellus tubaeformis) in their thousands, along with a few other bits and pieces. And it is that family, the Cantherellaceae, that I’ll especially remember 2013 for. They’ve all done brilliantly – not just the chanterelles (Cantherellus cibarius) that I’ve been finding since August, the Horns of Plenty (Craterellus cornucopioides) that I’d never found in serious quantities before this year but in 2013 seemed to

turn up all over the place, the aforementioned winter chanterelles that have been even more

abundant than usual this year as well as arriving about a month early, but also the much rarer members of this family. There are quite a few of these, several of which I’ve still never seen, but this year more of them than not turned up either in people’s posts on various websites.

It has also been the best year I can remember for beefsteak fungus (Fistulina hepatica) and in late spring and early summer it was an absolute stormer for chicken of the woods (Laetiporus

Beefsteak Fungus (Fistulina hepatica). October 2013.

sulphureus). The boletes did OK but that’s all, which was a little disappointing given their poor showing the last two years, and most species put on at least a reasonable display relative to their average frequency. It’s always a poor year for something though, and 2013 was a fallow year for the shaggy parasols, which took a rest after their stellar performance in 2012. It was also notably bad for the usually-prolific wood blewit (Clitocybe nuda), as well as many of their relatives. I didn’t see a single specimen of the deadly fool’s funnel (Clitocybe rivulosa), for example.

Details of next year’s sessions/prices, including a series of suppers/talks in the evenings, are now available from the menu above.

This will be my last blog post for a little while, because I’ve recently bought a new house and I have a lot of work to do sorting out a vegetable plot and building a pond and rockery. Enjoy your Christmas and New Year.

Geoff

Winter Chanterelles: what would I do in November without them?

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11/11/2013

When the days have got shorter and the wind and rain have chased the fair-weather foragers back to their cosy living rooms, when the chanterelles have all been picked and any penny buns still standing are just hollow, grub-filled shells, when the deciduous trees have dropped most of their leaves and the mainstream modern world has turned the central heating on and is looking forward to Christmas…is mushroom season over? Hell, no it isn’t!

White Saddle (Helvella crispa) having a storming 2013. These usually turn up as singletons, but have been trooping in large numbers this year.

I nearly didn’t post this. I sat in the bath for a while and mulled it over. Do I really want to tell people this? Wouldn’t it be better just to keep quiet about it and post something about what an extraordinary year it has been for the strange, recently-declared-toxic White Saddle (Helvella crispa) instead? But then I concluded that not enough people read my blog to make any significant impact on the greatest fungal bounty the British countryside has to offer, especially since it involves people trudging around in the mud in search of something that most of them probably wouldn’t notice if it was right in front of them. And yet it ranks right up there among the best of the edible wild fungi and in a good year it fruits in such wild abundance that it would take an army of foragers to pick even half of them.

Now that mushroom foraging has really taken off in the UK it is not so easy to find Chanterelles (Cantherellus cibarius). They are, after all, bright yellow-orange and can be spotted from 40 metres if your vision is any good. I mean…there’s not that many brightly coloured objects scattered around on the woodland floor and everybody who has ever taken an interest in wild fungi knows what a chanterelle looks like. Plus they grow when you can still go mushrooming in a T-shirt. Far fewer people ever go looking for their late-season cousins, regardless of the fact that they outnumber the apricot-scented chanterelle by a factor of at least a thousand.

Winter Chanterelle (Craterellus tubaeformis). Early November 2013.

I am talking, of course, about Craterellus tubaeformis, otherwise known as the Winter Chanterelle, Trumpet Chanterelle or Yellowleg (or unhelpfully and confusingly called a Chanterelle, as it is in France, by people who also call Chanterelles by the French name “Girolle”). They are the sort of thing you probably wouldn’t notice at all unless you were looking for them. They are grey-brown, rather ragged and very well camouflaged. They also like to grow under bracken in inaccessible places. However, if you do happen to spot one then you stand a very good chance of finding as many more of them as you have the time and inclination to pick, and that is especially true right now. 2013 has been a vintage year for the whole of the Cantherellaceae family, so it comes as no surprise that it is proving to be a vintage year for C. tubaeformis.

What do you do with them? Well, first you have to take them home and carefully clean them. This requires the removal of the stem bases (if you weren’t sensible/patient enough to do that before you put them in your basket), then the use of a brush or nimble fingers to get rid of pine needles and bits of bracken. You’ll also need to tear open the bigger ones because they tend to accumulate debris and small animals inside their tubular stems. They have a taste which is both strong and delicate. Not overpowering, but enough to impart a lovely flavour to anything you might cook them with which isn’t already overpoweringly strong-tasting. They make a great addition to spaghetti bolognese, but if you want to try something a bit more adventurous then I can heartily recommend the wild mushroom and leek tart posted on our sister site Charmed Pot, which would work perfectly well with 100% Winter Chanterelles, although there are still Hedgehog Mushrooms (Hydnum repandum) about.

Winter chanterelles in abundance. These were picked on the first day I had a customer fail to turn up for a foraging session. And it was at a location chosen by himself! Bad move.

As for identification problems, there isn’t much you could get these mixed up with. Maybe some of the small milkcaps, which don’t taste nice but won’t do you any harm. They are rather variable, both in size and shape, but they occur in such prodigious numbers that it shouldn’t take you long to familiarise yourself with all the variation they have to offer. All you’ve got to is find that first one.

Provided it doesn’t get really cold (serious frosts) before then, I expect to keep finding this species right through until the end of November and beyond. They will run out of steam before Christmas even if it hasn’t got seriously cold by then.

Commercial Pickers and Eastern Europeans: The Fungi Foraging Furore

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Email: geoffdann@hotmail.com
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04/11/2013

There is currently a massive row going on in the UK about foraging for fungi, especially the activity of two overlapping groups of people: eastern european immigrants and gangs of commercial collectors. I was going to wait until after this year’s mushroom season was over before posting something about this, but events have prompted me to do it now.

Filming for Russian Television REN-TV. Yes we were using the dreaded plastic bags – it was very wet and mushrooms in an open basket would have been soaked.

It has been a busy October for me. There have been plenty of mushrooms about, and I’ve had plenty of bookings. On top of all that I was contacted early in the month by Russian TV station REN-TV who wanted to spend the afternoon filming me at work teaching people about mushroom foraging and interviewing me both about what I do and the aforementioned furore. The piece was broadcast in Russia late last week and I posted it on my facebook page on Friday.

It immediately provoked a furious reaction from a Russian friend-of-friend who did not like the fact that I’d called commercial collectors from eastern Europe “robbers”. Not speaking Russian myself, I can’t know for sure what the translation of which bits of what I said was. So I am going to repeat what I said, in English, here.

My job is teaching people to forage responsibly and legally for fungi. As should be obvious, this is not very compatible with selling fungi to people: if it was my business to make money selling fungi then the last thing I’d want to do is teach other people how to identify commercially-collected species, and where to find them!

It is perfectly legal for people to pick fungi for their own personal usage in the UK, and my job is to enable people who don’t know anything about fungi to do this by supplying them with the information they need to tell the difference between what is good to eat, what isn’t, and what is poisonous. The nature of my job does not demand that I send my customers home with heaving baskets full of penny buns and chanterelles; I get paid the same amount whether we find one penny bun or twenty. And my customers learn far more if I find one specimen of twenty different species, especially the poisonous ones, than a massive load of something valuable.

It is not legal for people to pick fungi with a prior intent to sell in the UK, unless they have the landowner’s permission, for this becomes theft. The nature of that activity demands that people find as much of a handful of valuable species as they can. As soon as the profit-per-mushroom thing enters the equation, it is all too predictable what happens. Why, when every mushroom you pick brings you more money, would you leave any in place? The result is that commercial collectors are not only committing the crime of theft, but that they are stripping certain of locations of every mushroom they think they can sell. In some cases it is even worse than this, because there is a gang of people, most of who don’t even know which fungi are edible and which are not, and they are told to take everything that looks like it might be edible, including, inevitably, rare species that can’t be eaten. It is precisely this sort of behaviour which has led to a blanket ban on all picking of fungi in Epping Forest, with £200 fines for anybody caught breaking the rules. The problems described above are much worse closer to London. I have pretty much given up taking people foraging anywhere near the M25, let alone inside it. Although I have seen direct evidence of these activities this year as far from London as Hemsted Forest, halfway between Ashford and Tunbridge Wells.

On top of the commercial pickers, there is another change in the foraging landscape of the UK and that is being caused a cultural difference between British behaviour and that of people of certain eastern European countries, notably Poland. I’m sorry to have to name one particular nationality, especially since the nation in question was such a strong ally of the UK during the darkest years of the 20th century. Plus I like nearly all the Polish people I’ve met in the UK. Unfortunately their attitude to foraging is disrespectful to nature and is causing problems in various areas. Polish people have been banned from fishing in certain lakes because they’ve been stripping them of fish for their tables instead of releasing them back into the water. They’ve been caught killing wild waterfowl. And when it comes to fungi their attitude appears indistinguishable from that of the commercial collectors: take everything – the more bags you fill with boletes and chanterelles, the better. Again, I’ve seen direct evidence for this myself. I’ve seen/heard the people speaking Polish with bags stuffed to bursting (literally) with fungi, and then I’ve seen the woodland denuded of everything even remotely edible, including the mankiest of boletes I wouldn’t personally even consider eating. I know of two places where signs have been put up telling people not to pick fungi, written in Polish first and English underneath. 🙁

If these sorts of behaviour continue then I’m afraid that what has happened in Epping Forest is going to end up being repeated in many more places in the UK. I’m not sure what else can be done to stop it. It is all rather sad, because I do not believe that many British people are responsible. Nearly all of my customers seem to fully understand the need to leave half of the fruiting bodies behind and be respectful and responsible towards nature. The problems are almost entirely being caused by criminal gangs who are interested solely in making money from selling valuable species and by non-British people who have brought their unwanted foraging culture from places where there is more woodland and fewer people.

I’d like to say “enough said” on that topic, but I’m expecting this post to attract attention, not all of it welcome.

Horse mushrooms (Agaricus arvensis). November 2013, Sussex.

In other news, this year’s mushroom season had been going through a bit of a lull in the last couple of weeks. The warm-ish weather had meant that while the early autumn species had just about finished, the late ones hadn’t really got going. There’s been stuff about, but it has been disappointing compared to September and the start of October. This has changed in the last week or so with the appearance of first the wood blewits and now a big flush of various Agaricus species, notably horse mushrooms (Agaricus arvensis). There are also lots of poisonous yellow stainers (Agaricus xanthodermus) about, so be careful. Use your nose! Yellow stainers smell of phenol (a bit like TCP or bleach). Horse mushrooms smell of aniseed.

Our sister site Charmed Pot has posted a recipe for a delicious wild mushroom pate using horse mushrooms.

Honey Fungus: Armillaria on the march

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10/10/2013

Temperatures across the UK have plunged several degrees. It was T-shirt weather just two days ago, but I needed a coat this morning. The first major fall of leaves is also underway in the deep south, and there has been a changing of the mushroom guard as the late summer species fade away and the mid-autumn species make their first appearance.

I saw clouded funnel (Clitocybe nebularis) for the first time yesterday, which generally marks the halfway point in the progression of autumn-fruiting fungi. This species likes growing right next to roads and is recognisable as you drive past at 60mph, which leaves little doubt about just how common it is. It never has an off-year. Shame it smells of vomit! Anyway…it reliably turns up at the mid-point of the mushroom season and that is right now.

A wide selection of Tricholomas have also appeared in the last few days, along with another species which never has an off-year: honey fungus (Armillaria) is so super-abundant as to make even the displays of Clouded Funnel look sparse. Combined with the fact it is a virulent parasite and serious forestry/horticultural pest, this means that unlike so many other good edible fungi, foragers can eat Honey Fungus to their heart’s content with absolutely no worries about sustainability or the ethics of taking lots of stuff. The only problem with taking too much of this one is that you might end up with more than you can consume, and you absolutely do not want to be putting any on your compost heap – not if you value the trees and shrubs in your garden, anyway.

Armillaria mellea (“true” Honey Fungus) on the march. Mid-October 2013

I can’t help but associate the word “army” with “Armillaria”; the fruit bodies seem to march across some logs and stumps just like an army on the move. In many cases this fungus will have been the cause of death of those trees – it is one of the few organisms which is both parasitic and saprophytic – capable of killing a living tree and then continuing to feast on its corpse. If you fancy feasting in turn on it then make sure you cook it well and be aware that some people suffer gastric problems after consuming it. My favourite way to cook it is in the roasting dish with a fatty joint of meat, or fried for ten minutes in bacon fat. Long cooking reduces the chance of a reaction, apparently. Either way, it is very tasty.

“Armillaria” does not have any connection with armies, by the way. It derives from the latin “armilla”, meaning “bracelet” and refering to the bracelet-like ring on the stem (see picture). This is one of the identifying features of the species (although there is a ringless form). It’s not the easiest fungi to identify, owing to there being so many other species which grow in great tufts from decaying logs. The pattern on the cap is probably the most helpful indicator, but my advice is just to look at quite a few pictures on the internet and keep your eyes peeled for the next couple of weeks. You will soon learn how to recognise it, and once it is familiar then the only thing you might get it mixed up with is one of the Pholiota species, none of which are seriously poisonous, although some of them don’t mix well with alcohol.

Geoff at a fungi talk and tasting session at The Garden House, Brighton. October 2013.

The author at a fungi talk and tasting session at The Garden House, Brighton. October 2013.

2013 is also (apparently) turning out to be a vintage year for the chanterelle family. I’ve been seeing considerably more chanterelles (Cantherellus cibarius) than normal, winter chanterelles (Craterellus tubaeformis) have appeared earlier than normal, yesterday’s group of foraging students happened across a the largest fruiting of horns of plenty (Craterellus cornucopioides) I’ve ever seen and we also found the very rare velvet chanterelle (Cantherellus friesii). To top it all, somebody posted a picture yesterday at Wild Mushrooms Online of the even rarer ashen chanterelle (Cantherellus cinereus).

As a final note I’d just like to thank The Garden House for hosting a highly enjoyable fungi talk last Friday, a review of which can be found here.

The Penny Bun Storm Hits

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01/10/2013

Penny Bun (Boletus edulis, Porcino, Cep)

Re: my last blog post: OK, I was wrong, the pundits were right this time and the much-anticipated “penny bun storm” appears to have arrived. It’s perhaps a little later than expected (although the mushrooms rarely do what people expect them to do), but there is now no doubt that 2013 is going to go down as a very good year for Boletus edulis, otherwise known as a Porcino or Cep, and the most important commercially collected species in the world. I have in the last week seen numerous pictures posted from all over the UK of large collections of this species, mostly in excellent condition. And in those places where other people haven’t already been out picking, I’m finding plenty myself.

Lurid Bolete (Boletus luridus)

It is also looking like a pretty good year for most of the good edible species. I’m finding more chanterelles (Cantherellus cibarius) than usual, very abundant fruitings of Parasol Mushrooms (Macrolepiota procera), Giant Puffballs (Calvatia gigantea), Hedgehog Mushrooms (Hydnum repandum) and also a wide selection of other boletes, especially the Penny Bun’s “poor relation” the Bay Bolete (Boletus badius). This morning I also found a lovely collection of what are arguably the most beautiful of the pored mushrooms, the Lurid Bolete (Boletus luridus). They almost look too pretty to eat. Be careful if collecting, because there are some poisonous red-pored boletes – this is not the easiest branch of the family as far as safe collecting is concerned. An important identifying feature of this particular species is the persistent red line just above the tubes when cut. Also note that they are poisonous raw, and need to be well cooked.

All things considered, 2013 is shaping up to be a bumper year for fungi (a claim that is made every year in some quarters…this year is actually true). The season is likely to peak over the next three weeks so get ready for what is likely to be a glorious October for fungiphiles!

Geoff

A Good Year for the Deathcaps

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26/09/2013

Mushroom season 2013 is now well underway, not that you’d think so if you read what is being posted on many internet forums at the moment. The pundits who predicted a “penny bun storm” turned out to be woefully wrong (as usual – the pundits are always wrong – predicting what the mushrooms are going to do is a mug’s game). There are a few penny buns (Boletus edulis, cep, porcino) about, and considerably more of their “poor relation” the bay bolete (Boletus badius). The milkcaps (genus Lactarius) are doing well, as are the relatives of the shop/field mushrooms (genus Agaricus), and in the last few days parasol mushrooms (Macrolepiota procera) have started to appear in force. Everything else is currently doing badly, and the whole show is very, very patchy. There are still long stretches with not very much at all, and then you find a hotspot with loads going on.

Deathcap (Amanita phalloides)

If the edibles are having an unspectacular year (so far – everything might change next week), the same cannot be said of the deadlies. At least in my neck of the woods, September 2013 has turned out to be a bumper year for the deathcap (Amanita phalloides). It’s close relative, the pure white, equally-lethal destroying angel (Amanita virosa) is also having a good year, although it is never as common as its grey-green cousin.

These mushrooms live up to their reputations. They are the most toxic fungi by a clear margin, and rank among the deadliest organisms on the planet. If you eat just one of them then you will probably die, and the next most likely outcome is that you’ll need a kidney transplant. The reason for this high level of toxicity is that the poisons contained in these fungi directly attack the organs responsible for removing unwanted chemicals from the body: the kidneys and liver. Even worse, instead of being removed from the bloodstream when they pass through mammalian kidneys, these toxins are re-absorbed, and so go round and round the system causing more damage each time. There is no antidote.

You’ll often find nibbled specimens, and somewhat surprisingly it is not just invertebrates that like them. Both deer and rabbits can eat them with impunity, because their digestive systems have enzymes which break down the amatoxins before they enter the animals’ bloodstream.

Deathcaps grow symbiotically with deciduous trees, usually oaks. Destroying angels are usually found with beech. Both are easily recognised by the presence of a bag around the base of the stem (a volva) and pure white gills that stay white.

Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa)

I must admit to having a morbid fascination with these two mushrooms. There is something awesome about their lethality. I’m always pleased to find them, but I can’t say I particularly enjoy handling them. Touching them is not actually dangerous – you’d have to actually swallow part of the cap to get into trouble with them. They are perhaps the archetypal example of something which disproves the rule “what you don’t know won’t hurt you.” In this case, it is only if you don’t know what they are that they can hurt you. If you know them, and respect them, then they can’t harm you.

Geoff