Mushroom Foraging - Uncover The Wild
Fungi Foraging is the new Freeganism...
Bite back at the credit crunch and get your Wild Food for Free. Autumn's just around the corner, so mushrooms and berries will be at their best. Check out FoodLovers Approved mushroom and wild food foraging courses around Britain and remember to book early - they're always popular.
Taste The Wild
Looking for a new and inspiring food experience?....based in Yorkshire...
Wild Man Wild Food
If you thought foraging was just about mushrooms, Fergus Drennan's outdoor courses will give you food for thought... based in Kent...
Woodland Ways
Each and every one of our foraging courses are designed to give you a fun experience....based around the country
Wilderness Survival Skills
WE HAVE A LIMITED NUMBER OF DISCOUNTED PLACES AVAILABLE ON OUR WILD FOOD FORAGE 26TH - 28TH SEPTEMBER - 15% DISCOUNT AVAILABLE TO FOODLOVERS MEMBERS - BOOK NOW VIA OUR WEBSITE...
More foraging and wild food courses...
Fungi To Be With Guiding on Skye
Manna from Devon Marches Fungi
Mike Robinson Game & Wild Food Cookery School
Survival School Wilderness Survival Skills
Wildside Survival School Wild Food School
If you just want to eat wild mushrooms, here are some of our FoodLovers Approved places
Ramsons Restaurant
Chris’s foodie philosophy is elemental: Good food is a product of its environment...
The Walnut Tree Inn
Shaun Hill is back in the kitchen, reviving the fortunes of the much-loved Walnut Tree Inn...
More places to eat wild mushrooms...
The Wild Mushroom Restaurant
Galvelmore House B & B
Le Poussin
The Foxhunter Restaurant
Too time-stressed or lazy to forage? Why not get someone else to do the hard work? Here's a few FoodLovers Approved places to buy mushrooms
Food Inc
Food Inc. aims to delight customers by bringing ‘a restaurant approach to food shopping’ as well as injecting some fun...
Turnips at Borough Market
Run by Fred Foster who concentrates on sourcing the very best British fruit and vegetables...
More places to buy...
Caledonian Wildfoods Fundamentally Fungus
Gourmet Mushrooms Kentdown Mushroom Farm
L Booth Maesyffin Mushrooms
Smithy Mushrooms Strathspey Mushrooms
Mrs Tee's Wild Mushrooms
Cook with wild mushrooms...
Chanterelle & Porcini Tart Cod baked with Wild Mushrooms
Braised Lamb with Morels & Madeira Braised Pork with Wild Mushrooms
Wild Mushroom & Butterbean Soup Wild Mushroom & Goats Cheese Frittata
Urban Foraging...
London - believe it or not - is a great place for foraging. When mushroom hunting, search by old oak, beech or silver birch trees or at the edges of woodland.
Recommended Urban Foraging Spots include...
Hampstead Heath
Epping Forest
Wimbledon Common
Walthamstow Marsh Nature Reserve
Remember to follow the FoodLovers Foraging Guidelines
Cut mushrooms at the base with a knife - don't rip them out off the ground
Leave some for other foragers - don't be greedy
Follow the countryside walking code - don't trample over wild plants
Carry a guide book with you - don't pick what you can’t easily identify
Mushrooms absorb all kinds of noxious pollutants - don’t pick near busy roads
If you have any comments or tips on foraging, contact us
Nominate a foraging course, restaurant or place to buy wild food to be FoodLovers Approved
Want to know more about wild mushrooms...
If you are passionate about wild food, in particular wild mushrooms, and you want a good resource to help you with identifying wild mushrooms, try wildmushroomsonline
Here's how to get started...
Cep or Porcini
Porcini (Boletus edulis, the taxonomic name) is a highly regarded edible mushroom. It has a number of English names, including cep (from its Catalan name cep or its French name cèpe), king bolete and penny bun. A common term in current use is porcini. This mushroom has a distinct aroma reminiscent of fermented dough. The mushroom can grow singly or in clusters. Its habitat consists of areas dominated by oak, pine, spruce, and fir trees. Not limited to these locations, the King Bolete is also found in hardwood forests containing oaks. It fruits from summer to autumn.
The cap of this mushroom is convex, and 5–30 cm in diameter. At first, the cap is white then develops to mostly reddish-brown fading to white in areas near the margin; the colour continues to darken as it matures to a brown, smooth, moist, shining cap. The flesh is chalky white, often tinged with pink. Beneath is a spongy mass of vertical tubes, white at first, becoming yellowish-green, and eventually brown, in which the brown spores are produced. These pores do not stain when bruised. The stalk is stout, pale brown, with a fine network of raised, white veins towards the top and is 8–25 cm in height, and up to 7 cm thick, which is rather large in comparison to the cap. Fully mature specimens can weigh about 1 kg. However, the most appreciated by gourmets are the young small porcini, which are dense and tan to pale brown in colour, as the large ones often harbour insect larvae, and they become slimy, soft and less tasty with age. When you cut them lengthways - the insides remain white. The underside of the cap is always sponge-like on a cep.
Chefs consider porcini to be one of the finest-tasting wild mushrooms. For centuries Ancient Greeks and Romans thought them to be the best of all edible mushrooms and even today many famous chefs continue to believe this to be true. Porcini mushrooms lack aroma, but are well valued for their meaty texture, interesting flavour and distinguishing shape. The flavour is nutty, meaty, buttery, savoury, almost sweet, with a smooth, creamy texture. When fresh, porcini can be eaten and enjoyed raw as well as fried, sautéed with butter, ground into pasta, in risotto, in soups, and served with veal and game. They are a feature of many cuisines, including Provençal and Viennese. They can also be dried by stringing them separately on twine and hanging close to the ceiling of a kitchen for later use in casseroles and soups. Drying the porcini seems to accentuate its sweet and meaty overtones, reducing "l'eau du terre" (smell of the earth) that distinguishes fresh boletes. Once dry, they are best kept in an airtight container. Drying them in the oven is not advised as it can result in them being cooked and spoiling. When reconstituted, the liquid retrieved from soaking them makes a perfect soup base, needing almost no additions.
From wildmushroomsonline
Chanterelles
The golden chanterelle is one of the most recognized edible mushrooms, famous for its delicious and exquisite taste.
The golden chanterelle (C. cibarius) is common in woods in summer and autumn. Cantharellus is a mycorrhizal edible fungus, and forms symbiotic associations with hardwoods and conifer trees, where they tend to grow in the same spot year after year. The funnel-shaped cap is orange or yellow, but generally egg-yellow, with paler flesh and is quite meaty. It has forking gills on the underside, running all the way down its stalk, which tapers down seamlessly from the cap. The gills are interconnected and forked near the edge of the cap. Unlike most mushrooms with thin straight gills under the cap, the chanterelle has rounded, shallow and widely spaced ridges. The pale pinkish-buff spores are produced in narrow folds. It has a faint fragrant fruity smell reminiscent of apricots or peaches, and a mildly peppery taste, and is considered an excellent food mushroom. Its taste varies widely – from delicate to fairly intense.
Chefs love the chanterelle because of its cooking versatility. Chanterelles can be added as an ingredient to most dishes, and in general go well with eggs, curry, chicken, pork, fish, beef and veal, can be used as toppings on pizzas, be stewed, marinated, sautéed in olive oil, or used as filling for stuffed crêpes. Select specimens that have a fragrant odour, apricot colour, with no slimy, dark or decaying parts, and gills that are widely spaced. Chanterelles require cleaning before cooking because dirt tends to be found in the forked gills and crevices. It is best to use a soft toothbrush or nylon mushroom brush for cleaning. It may help to do so under slowly running water, but don’t soak them and be sure to drain well as the water will take away flavour. Once cleaned keep them in waxed paper or a paper bag in the refrigerator until cooking time. They can last 7-10 days in the refrigerator, although chanterelles are best eaten fresh
Chanterelles are rather firm-fleshed and meaty and therefore need cooking for longer than most mushrooms. The peppery taste combined with the meaty and chewy texture is ideal for cooking. Be sure to cook in large chunks to maximize flavour.
Don't pick... The False chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca) has finer, more orange gills and a darker cap. Although edible, it is a culinary disappointment.
The Jack O'Lantern mushroom (Omphalotus olearius) and its sister species (Omphalotus olivascens) are very similar in appearance to chanterelles and will make you very sick, although they are not lethal. Unlike chanterelles they have true gills (not forked or divided) that are thinner, have distinct crowns, and generally do not reach up to the edge. Additionally, the Jack-O-Lantern mushroom is bioluminescent and it tends to grow in clumps on trees – NOT under trees, like the chanterelle.
From wildmushroomsonline
Related Mushroom and Mushroom Foraging Sites
Foraging on Wikipedia
Find out everything you wanted to know about foraging!
Mushrooms on Wikipedia
Wiki's detailed look at mushrooms.
Wild Mushrooms Online
A great resource for detailed information on wild mushrooms.