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| High up in an oak tree - The Chicken of the Woods |
I like mushrooms. I like their look, I like their tenacity and I like their taste (the edible ones).
There are around 4000 species of mushrooms large enough to eat in the UK and about 25% of those are edible. Most of this last quarter are either tasteless, tough or too small to bother with and so we're left with about 100 or so that are sought after and only about 25 or so that most foragers bother with.
Of that original 4000 species, about ten per cent are actually poisonous and only 20 are dangerously so. I say only, but please do not take any chances at all. If you don't know which mushroom it is - do not eat it.
I have tried a couple of the nasty, hot mushrooms which prevent you eating more almost instantly due to the horrid taste left in the mouth. But there are a few lovely and innocuous looking specimens that will leave you in hospital and worse. Please be careful. Most though will give you gastric uncertainty and discomfort by way of diarrhoea or will give you visual uncertainty by way of hallucinations. Neither are pleasant so be sure of what you eat.
This week I found a fungi which I usually start to find later in the summer, but it can be found earlier depending on the humidity - this spring has been particularly wet.
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| High rainfall has brought this one out early.... |
It has a wonderfully evocative name, a stunning colour and is one of the best mushrooms to cook with. It has a pleasant mushroomy flavour as daft as that sounds, and a solid texture which means it is perfect for curries, casseroles, omlettes and risottos. When you cut into its flesh it is like carving chicken breast. It's also very easy to identify and therefore safe, but it doesn't agree with everyone according to some books, so if it is your first time eating this solid bracket fungi then try a little at a time.
It is found mainly on oak and usually on decaying or damaged oak, but I have found it on beech and ash. Do not eat any if it is growing on a yew tree - this will almost definitely be poisonous.
I expect you're thinking "Gosh all these warnings, is it really worth it?" Well, yes, I think it is. It's great food, it's free and it's a smugly satisfying thing to find and cook your own food. This is a great mushroom to start with, but do cook it first. There, the final safety warning.....try it and enjoy the countryside.
