We were given mushrooms by a French woman who was on a group holiday and kindly gave mushrooms to everybody in the group. A mixture of champignons, or button mushrooms, and ceps, also known as porcini.
The French go out gathering mushrooms. A French pharmacist will have a book or poster identifying mushrooms which are safe to eat. In any case, local people will know their local mushrooms.
In English supermarkets we can buy the small button mushrooms which are a handy size for cooking or adding to a salad at lunchtime. We can also buy the big flat mushrooms you can stuff like a bowl for a starter or lunch or vegetarian meal.
From time to time you see those small headed mushrooms with the long stalks.
What you never see in supermarkets are the pretty red mushrooms so loved by illustrators of children's books because the mushrooms are colourful and attention getting. Think of the red as a red light saying stop. They are deadly poisonous.
On a press trip I met a girl who had worked on a food magazine. I asked if they had ever made any mistakes or got any complaints. She said once an outside illustrator had added a photo of the poisonous mushroom to the page of mushroom recipes.
My jaw dropped in horror. I asked, "Did you get any complaints?"
"No."
I was even more shocked. "Did anybody die? All your readers!"
"No. We did get some feedback much later. A reader said she'd tried three supermarkets and nobody stop stocked them. And our local supermarket manager said he'd had lots of requests for a mushroom he couldn't get from any of his suppliers."
Safe or not?
The first thing I did was google safe and poisonous mushrooms to be sure our friendly supplier in France had not made a mistake.
Then we looked for recipes. We made a big 'soup' of mashed up mushrooms. A mixture of cep and champignons. The mushrooms were so tasty!
Wikipedia says champignons are known in English by the popular name button mushrooms.
On the way around my internet search I came across advice on what to do when gathering mushrooms. It said you take care of three things. Two are:
1 Use a wicker basket so the mushrooms can drop their 'spores' as you carry them, to create more mushrooms.
2 You do not pick the small mushrooms, only the larger ones, for the same reason, to ensure a crop from the spores released by the full size mushrooms.
Who'd have known! So next time you drive through France and see the mushroom pickers with their baskets, or hunt for mushroom recipes, or pick or grow your own, think of the mushroom gatherers in France.
The most famous and delicious mushrooms are truffles with a smokey flavour. Very expensive, but a little goes a long way. You could buy a teeny pot as a present for yourself or another member of your family, then make a mushroom omelette for everybody.
Mushroom soup is easy to make. You hardly need a recipe. Just wash them, chop them up, simmer gently in butter. No need to add water if you have lots of mushrooms and want a thick 'soup' like a dip. Add water if you want a thin soup, which the French call a 'consommé'. The recipe we looked at suggested adding a herb, thyme. We did not have fresh herbs so we added dried thyme.
I looked for a list of mushroom names. The plant sites have pages and pages of mushroom names, very comprehensive, and who would have imagined that there were so many. But the lists are so long you cannot find what you want and grow bored. The cookbook site I have mentioned below was more useful to me.
I was surprised to see in addition to the prized internationally known French truffle, there are also Texas truffles. I thought I'd add them because they will be news to my English readers and of interest to my readers in the USA, and American readers are more numerous so I always look for something to interest those living in the USA.
Later a cook given the mushrooms lunched on a British favourite, bacon, egg on toast and mushrooms.
Mushroom Names
champignon
cep
French truffle
fly agaric (red and poisonous)
Texas truffle
http://www.wildmushroomsonline.co.uk/Wild-Mushrooms-in-France/index.php
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iFi3YrIo7o (How to grow your own mushrooms from spores)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore
http://www.mssf.org/cookbook/names.html
http://www.wildmushroomsonline.co.uk/Identifying-Edible-Mushrooms-The-Cep/index.php
To identify mushrooms from pictures:
http://www.first-nature.com/fungi/~id-guide.php
Angela Lansbury, BA, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.
The French go out gathering mushrooms. A French pharmacist will have a book or poster identifying mushrooms which are safe to eat. In any case, local people will know their local mushrooms.
In English supermarkets we can buy the small button mushrooms which are a handy size for cooking or adding to a salad at lunchtime. We can also buy the big flat mushrooms you can stuff like a bowl for a starter or lunch or vegetarian meal.
From time to time you see those small headed mushrooms with the long stalks.
What you never see in supermarkets are the pretty red mushrooms so loved by illustrators of children's books because the mushrooms are colourful and attention getting. Think of the red as a red light saying stop. They are deadly poisonous.
On a press trip I met a girl who had worked on a food magazine. I asked if they had ever made any mistakes or got any complaints. She said once an outside illustrator had added a photo of the poisonous mushroom to the page of mushroom recipes.
My jaw dropped in horror. I asked, "Did you get any complaints?"
"No."
I was even more shocked. "Did anybody die? All your readers!"
"No. We did get some feedback much later. A reader said she'd tried three supermarkets and nobody stop stocked them. And our local supermarket manager said he'd had lots of requests for a mushroom he couldn't get from any of his suppliers."
Meanwhile, remembering this story of the magazine and the mushrooms, I looked suspiciously at mushrooms which popped up, uninvited, in our garden in England. I don't think I have a photo.
But these mushrooms grew on a doormat in England. We did not risk eating them. Does anybody know what they were?
Safe or not?
The first thing I did was google safe and poisonous mushrooms to be sure our friendly supplier in France had not made a mistake.
Then we looked for recipes. We made a big 'soup' of mashed up mushrooms. A mixture of cep and champignons. The mushrooms were so tasty!
Wikipedia says champignons are known in English by the popular name button mushrooms.
On the way around my internet search I came across advice on what to do when gathering mushrooms. It said you take care of three things. Two are:
1 Use a wicker basket so the mushrooms can drop their 'spores' as you carry them, to create more mushrooms.
2 You do not pick the small mushrooms, only the larger ones, for the same reason, to ensure a crop from the spores released by the full size mushrooms.
Who'd have known! So next time you drive through France and see the mushroom pickers with their baskets, or hunt for mushroom recipes, or pick or grow your own, think of the mushroom gatherers in France.
The most famous and delicious mushrooms are truffles with a smokey flavour. Very expensive, but a little goes a long way. You could buy a teeny pot as a present for yourself or another member of your family, then make a mushroom omelette for everybody.
Mushroom soup is easy to make. You hardly need a recipe. Just wash them, chop them up, simmer gently in butter. No need to add water if you have lots of mushrooms and want a thick 'soup' like a dip. Add water if you want a thin soup, which the French call a 'consommé'. The recipe we looked at suggested adding a herb, thyme. We did not have fresh herbs so we added dried thyme.
I looked for a list of mushroom names. The plant sites have pages and pages of mushroom names, very comprehensive, and who would have imagined that there were so many. But the lists are so long you cannot find what you want and grow bored. The cookbook site I have mentioned below was more useful to me.
I was surprised to see in addition to the prized internationally known French truffle, there are also Texas truffles. I thought I'd add them because they will be news to my English readers and of interest to my readers in the USA, and American readers are more numerous so I always look for something to interest those living in the USA.
Later a cook given the mushrooms lunched on a British favourite, bacon, egg on toast and mushrooms.
Mushroom Names
champignon
cep
French truffle
fly agaric (red and poisonous)
Texas truffle
http://www.wildmushroomsonline.co.uk/Wild-Mushrooms-in-France/index.php
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iFi3YrIo7o (How to grow your own mushrooms from spores)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore
http://www.mssf.org/cookbook/names.html
http://www.wildmushroomsonline.co.uk/Identifying-Edible-Mushrooms-The-Cep/index.php
To identify mushrooms from pictures:
http://www.first-nature.com/fungi/~id-guide.php
Angela Lansbury, BA, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.
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