Week 41 - learning to forage for mushrooms

Oh how I love the humble, earthy mushroom. I always have and I know that my real love began as a young child, eating meatballs and mushrooms, a Polish dish passed down from my grandmother to my Mum.  It is phenomenal and all my friends have agreed when I have made it.  In a restaurant, if there is ever a dish on a menu with mushrooms, it is more than likely that I will order it.  I utterly love mushrooms.

But, I have no earthly business loving mushrooms as much as I do and not learning about how to pick them during my exploratory year of learning and development.  It was only a few days ago that my brother told me he had fed his wife some mushrooms he just found in the garden, saying that "they just looked like chestnut mushrooms".  Oh dear.  Little did he know that "they just looked like...." has probably poisoned a myriad of mushroom lovers.

It is very difficult to find any foraging courses in London as they tend to be in the counties where lots of mushrooms grow, but I did spot a lovely looking course taking place in Croydon with Wild Food UK.  Croydon may not necessarily be the first place you think of to go traipsing off foraging for goodies, but it is one of the greenest boroughs in London with well over 100 parks and woodlands.  A group of us were met at Croham Hurst woods by Marlow, one of the owners of Wild Food UK ready, eager and eagle-eyed.  I brought my dog, Cleo with me to help with the search; she is after all a scent hound, although as it turns out she was utterly useless in the task.

Before we got started Marlow stood us in front of an elder tree and gave us all a glass of the most delicious elderflower champagne, homemade by him.  It is incredibly easy to make.  You just need water, elderflower heads, sugar, lemon and white wine vinegar.  It was zingy, refreshing and gorgeous and started us off well for the 2.5 hour jaunt into the undergrowth.

I had absolutely no idea that there are literally thousands upon thousands of mushrooms out there, it is a total minefield of fungus and what makes it even more difficult for a forager is that there are loads of species that look quite like one edible mushroom but in fact, are a poisonous something else. Throughout the day we found at least 15 different mushrooms and about half of those were poisonous.  The one below is from the Cortinarius family and are quite easy to distinguish because they often have a cortina (veil) of fibres between the cap and the stem.  You can just make out the white furry fibres around the edges.  Novice foragers are told to generally stay away from Cortinarius mushrooms because so many of them are poisonous and hard to distinguish.

These ones below are sulphur tufts, much easier to recognise but also toxic.  Shame really as they do look rather pretty.

One family of mushrooms that is great for foragers because every type is easy to identify and all of them are edible is the puffball.  The mushroom in the photo below looks like a puffball.  However, in order to 100% identify a puffball you have to cut it in half.  If its a true puffball it will be white inside.  This one is brown inside and masquerading as a puffball.  In actual fact it is an earth ball and poisonous.

The day carried on like this, with us all gleefully hopeful at every discovery, only to be thwarted with news that we wouldn't be bringing any of the specimens back with us for our mushroom feast for lunch.  We did however spot some coveted wood sorrel that we picked for our garnish and had a little nibble of as we walked.  It tasted lemony and a bit like apple peel.  

Finally, during the second half of the walk and after a snack of some truly delicious homemade mushroom soup in the sunshine, we started to find some mushrooms that we could take away with us.  The best family of mushrooms for novice foragers is the boletus family as they are very easily identifiable.  Essentially they have sponge pores under the cap instead of gills.  To tell whether one is poisonous or not you should cut into it.  If it immediately turns bright blue then its poisonous, like this one. 

But we found a few fleshy ones that were perfect for eating. Other ones we took away with us were Amethyst Deceivers, Shaggy Ink Caps, Bay Boletus and Yellow Russulas. I thought we'd just be swiping a few Chanterelles and Buttons. Who knew? It is an absolute cornucopia of fungus out there and quite frankly one day out foraging does not an expert make. It is bloody hard to tell what type of mushroom it is you're finding and as any good forager will tell you, you have to be absolutely 100% sure you know what it is before eating it. 

However, I now know what to look for if I think I've spotted a deadly amanita, or how to tell a Puffball from an Earthball. Wonderfully practical, I also know that if I'm out in the forest and cut my finger, I can look for a Birch Polypore, the swiss army knife of mushrooms and use the skin as a natural plaster. I am a far more learned mushroom lover than I was before.

Afterwards we reconvened in a local pub where Marlow provided us with a hearty lunch of mushroom pâté (made earlier) with a selection of fresh breads, as well as some delicious pasta made with all of the mushrooms we had foraged for and a little wood sorrel garnish.  It was all absolutely yummy and all the more satisfying knowing we had picked the ingredients from a local wood just minutes beforehand.  

Marlow is an absolute expert in his craft and gave us masses of information to digest throughout the day, as well as emailing us all everything afterwards.  With all of that plus the food and all the extra bits along the way, £35 for the course is an absolute steal.  Wild Food UK organise foraging courses all over the UK and if you are at all interested in foraging, or just love shrooms, I would highly recommend them!