There was four or five hours steady rain yesterday, useful rain, everything's better for it following a hot and dry July and August.
There were people in the woods this morning. Lot's of people, at the crack of dawn and all on a misson to find the king of mushrooms, the Cepe, Porcini to the Italians, Penny Bun to you and me. The flipside of a wet Sunday afternoon is a mushroom harvest early this morning which until now has been in short supply this late Summer.
Boletus edulis fetch a high price in the markets of Paris or London, but in the Dordogne you can find them for free if you know where and what to look for.
There'll be other mushrooms too.
Maybe Safron Milkcap, which sound so much better when called Lactaire Délicieux or possibly Orange de Bordeaux.
All in all, mushroom season is slowly getting underway. These are all pictures from the archives but next market I visit, I'll take the camera.
Bon Appétit
Good to see you posting Rob - I was wondering whether you had melted in the Spanish 'plume'. The year is turning quickly - it only seems like yesterday that you posted about mushrooms. I imagine that they will be the magical ingredient in many delicious meals. How long does the season last?
ReplyDeleteHi Anna. Well yes, posting again. The garden got a severe battering about three weeks ago. We had a violent storm with 140 km winds which flattened everything and uprooted so many trees.
DeleteThe mushroom season will last until the first frosts, sometime in November.
Thanks for answering my query Rob. Sorry to read about the storm damage. Must have added to your work load at the worst time of year.
DeleteOne of the memories of out trip to the Perigord a few years back now.
ReplyDeleteMushrooms/cepes - a great addition to most plates.
Leon
There's a large specialist market at Villefranche de Perigord where in the height of season they sell up to 2 1/2 tonnes of cepes in a day!
DeleteTo me they'll always be porcini since I first encountered them in Italy. One great regret is that we don't have them--what we do have are not the same at all--over here. One of the great pleasures of life.
DeleteJames it was the Italians who successfully exported them worldwide in their dry state - although the French dry them too. You must have all sorts of mushrooms in the woods around you - A fungi foray?
DeleteAwesome. I would love to be in France right now. Jeannine
ReplyDeleteThanks Jeannine, September is a good time to be in France.
DeleteWow! Look at those Mushrooms. I can smell them from here all the way in Jeresey : ) ! Lovely photos.
ReplyDeleteThanks - they make for good photos!
DeleteThese look amazing. Do they taste as good as they look? I imagine them in a white wine and butter sauce. Fascinating to see the mushroom harvest in France.
ReplyDeleteWhite wine and butter are the perfect additions to them. The weather is dry again so things are slow but there are showers forecast over the weekend which should get things going again.
DeleteWonderful creatures. The Thai's perhaps love mushrooms more than the French..they have a huge range (I believe) in the wild in the mountains and many mushroom farms. The Akha people of Northern Thailand and all over Shan state Burma are pretty keen on them! I had a dish with 4 varieties in the small Akha village near the school I taught in last year..amazing flavours to say the least!
ReplyDeleteThailand does good things with food - fullstop!
DeleteI bet the mushroom dish you had was superb.
Oh fun! You know your mushrooms. I find fungi fascinating, but I don't trust myself to identify them. I have tons of mushroom photos and several experts have helped me to ID them, but I would never eat them without having a mushroom expert along. Great post!
ReplyDeleteThanks. You make a good point. I wouldn't try to ID them in the wild without an expert present. Buying them in the markets, well that's a different thing as they're all experts who know exactly what they're selling.
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