The Magic of Mushrooms

Every winter you will find local people here on my Greek island out in the forest; shooting at wild birds and rabbits, picking wild herbs and gathering χόρτα (horta in English) which can be any one of a whole variety of green plants that grow wild here and are cooked to eat or make drinks with.

I pick the wild mushrooms that grow here and I get treated with a great deal of suspicion! Even friends who have seen me picking these regularly for more than 10 years now will sometimes tell me where they have seen them growing... but then recoil in horror at the thought of actually eating one. ‘But it might be poisonous. How can you know?’  I always thought that country folk knew these things. Not so it turns out. At least not on this small island populated by seafarers.

How do I know? Research! Trial and error is not advised in selecting wild mushrooms to eat. A famous old adage runs....  ‘There are old mushroom eaters, and there are bold mushroom eaters, but there are no old, bold mushroom eaters.’

Now to be honest there are very few deadly poisonous varieties about although there are quite a few that might give you an uncomfortable night in the bathroom. But deadly means exactly that…. This is not a mistake you can change your mind about, so be careful. Most wild mushrooms are not worth the effort of picking because they taste bad, they taste of nothing or they’re too tough to get your teeth through.

Research. Find out what you are doing. A long time ago I armed myself with a copy of ‘Mushrooms’ by Roger Phillips. There are plenty of other books about on the subject, but personally I find Phillips’ work to be the most comprehensive and accessible book around.

Early on I adopted the policy of ‘throw it out if there’s any doubt’. Even with a good book, sorting out exactly which variety have in your hand is not always straight forward. They just don’t grow conveniently looking exactly like the photos in the book! For example, there is a large white mushroom that grows locally in the autumn. In my more ignorant days I once picked some thinking them to be very edible St Georges Mushrooms.  A check in the book quickly put me right…. Nearly. They turned out to be 90% certainly ‘Amanita Solitaria’…. But that missing 10%? Well, they could be ‘Amanita Virosa’. The first one is edible and the second one is better known as The Destroying Angel and is deadly poisonous. Many gamblers might bet on odds like that. I don’t…. not for those stakes anyway.

What do I find? A limited range given the poor soil and almost exclusive pine forest habitat here. Nevertheless, from late October until early February, I can find occasional Wood Mushrooms and Parasol Mushrooms which are all delicious. More common are two varieties of Boletus which look like Ceps but aren’t as good. Personally I don’t much like their texture, but they dry well for use in stock and soup etc. And then we get Amethyst Deceivers, and several other varieties which are all eminently edible but sometime best enjoyed as part of a sauce or soup rather than as dish on their own.

And now and then I come home with a basket of Saffron Milk Caps. It took me a while to find out how to cook these properly. They’re very hard and need more cooking than normal shop mushrooms…. But well worth the effort.

Saffron Milk Caps with Cream

Here’s a recipe I adapted from a couple of sources on the web…

Important: Never eat wild mushrooms whole. Many little grubs and maggots like to eat them too…. You might be eating more than you bargained for. Milk Caps are usually, but not always free of maggots…. But a knife through the middle will quickly tell you whether they’re for the pan or the garbage.

225g   Saffron Milk Caps (you'll never find exactly that amount.... adapt!)

2tbsp  Vegetable Oil

1          Garlic Clove

6tbsp  Double Cream or Cream Cheese with milk (see recipe)

2tbsp  Parsley

Salt and Black Pepper to taste

Blanch the mushrooms for two or three minutes in boiling water then put them to dry.  This is generally good policy with the harder mushroom varieties and helps to tenderize them for cooking. These Milk Caps will turn green when you blanch them… this is perfectly normal.

Cut up into small pieces then gently heat them in a frying pan until any liquid has evaporated. Add the oil, garlic, parsley and seasoning and cook over medium heat for 30 minutes.

Add the cream and cook for a further 15 minutes. I use a cheese/milk mix here; double cream is often a non-existent supermarket item on my island. A spoonful of cream cheese thinned with a little milk to the consistency of double cream works perfectly well.

Serve…. this goes really well with pasta such as Penne. Just drizzle some olive oil over the dish and maybe garnish with a little more fresh parsley.