Mushrooms

luckat

Where's a good place for mushroom hunting near Dublin? With the warm wet summer we're having, there should be lots of lovely chantarelles, cepes and so on, and a Finnish friend is gumming for a mushroom hunt.

cavedave

I am not a mushroom expert so ignore me if you are. It is fairly common for people to pick mushrooms that are safe in their country only to find that a slightly different species in another country is poisonous. "Mr Bloomfield's orchard" has some tales about this. Just saying care is needed.
Northern Ireland has a mushroom foraying group but i do not know of any around Dublin.

luckat

Well, I know the Dublin Naturalists' Field Club has a fungus group, but I'm finding it a bit baffling to contact them - the email addresses on their website bounce.

cavedave

Yes i had the same problem contacting them. This crowd seem really nice and it is not too big a journey up north
http://www.nifg.org.uk/home.htm

mallet head

hi


I was also wondering if they is somewhere in the dublin/wicklow area for a mushroom hunt.Not for consumption but just to have some fun with the kids while out on a walk.

Alun

Did a bit of a Google, and came up with this very interesting site! I might even go there myself, as I've always been interested in learning more about mushroom collecting.

http://www.mushroomstuff.com/asp/index.asp?ObjectID=310&Mode=0&RecordID=22

I'm fairly certain they do mushroom trips starting from the resource centre up at the upper lake at glendalough as well but I can't find anything right now.

mallet head

Alun wrote:

Did a bit of a Google, and came up with this very interesting site! I might even go there myself, as I've always been interested in learning more about mushroom collecting.

http://www.mushroomstuff.com/asp/index.asp?ObjectID=310&Mode=0&RecordID=22

I'm fairly certain they do mushroom trips starting from the resource centre up at the upper lake at glendalough as well but I can't find anything right now.

That is brilliant, Thanks a lot.

Alun

Found a list of events at Glendalough ... http://www.wicklownationalpark.ie/pages/special_events.php ... no mushrooms unfortunately, but plenty of interesting things for kids and adults alike.

mallet head

Alun wrote:

Found a list of events at Glendalough ... http://www.wicklownationalpark.ie/pages/special_events.php ... no mushrooms unfortunately, but plenty of interesting things for kids and adults alike.

Great stuff. I'll be about 6 stone by the time summer is over:D

Roen

Interesting site indeed.
One thing that I had heard (anecdotally) is that mushrooms have practically no nutritional value at all. I wonder is it true. There's no mention on that site. I know they add plenty of flavour and bulk to meals, but are they giving you a daily dose of vitamins etc....?

mallet head

mallet head wrote:

hi


I was also wondering if they is somewhere in the dublin/wicklow area for a mushroom hunt.Not for consumption but just to have some fun with the kids while out on a walk.

I posted that same query on the Outdoor pursuits forum and the mod locked the thread thinking I was a stoner:eek: . the've got some serious issues over there.

cavedave

*edit it is not appropriate to discuss the decisions of the mods on other forums here so comment removed.

Ruu_Old

Please use Feedback for discussing moderator issues. Back on topic please, thanks.

edit: just saw thread in Feedback.

fits

could anyone point to a good guide on whats edible or not?
I live in an area where theres lots of wild mushrooms and would love to go scavenging.
Had some yellow ones a few weeks ago, and they were absolutely delicious.

cavedave

I would not solely trust any book. I would go on a forage with the northern irish group listed above or some other one (if you can find it). Better safe then dead.

fits

they were chanterelles, absolutely delicious.
http://www.geocities.com/kitonka/MushroomMania/chanterelle.html

Agree with you about going out with a group, if only there were a local group...

fits

Interesting online article... by Paolo Tullio

For me, the best of the free foods come in the autumn. I enjoy nothing more than late afternoon walks with a low sun and crisp air, hunting mushrooms. For some reason that is still entirely unclear to me, very few people in Ireland gather mushrooms. Perhaps it's some kind of atavistic fear of toadstools and witchcraft, or perhaps it's simply that there is no tradition of doing so. There is a part of me that doesn't want to encourage people to go mushroom gathering, since it could result in somebody getting to one of my favourite mushroom patches before I do and picking them first. But there's another less selfish part that can't help wanting to share something very special with others.

Gastronomically speaking you can divide mushrooms into three groups, those that are good to eat, those that are poisonous, and those that are neither of the above. This last group is by far the largest; there are many hundreds of mushrooms that will neither poison you nor give you any pleasure. The poisonous mushrooms are not many in number, and neither, sadly, are the ones that are really good to eat. My advice, if you're interested, would be this: buy a good book on mushrooms (Roger Philips' is good) and learn to recognise the poisonous ones and the good ones. Never pick a mushroom that you don't recognise.

Most years chanterelles can be found in the Wicklow hills. They're apricot-coloured, smell wonderful and when you do find a patch, tend to be there in large numbers. If you're lucky enough to find them, mark the place well since they also tend to grow year after year in the same place. And there's another bonus: more often than not after the chanterelles have finished growing, the white hedgehog mushroom nearly always follows them in the same place. It's very easy to recognise, because under the cap it has little spines rather than gills, hence its name.

The best of the best is the cep. Its proper name is boletus edulis, but it's often known in English as the 'penny bun'. It gets this name because the cap is hemispherical and is the colour and size of a brown bun. Ceps are not easy to find since they grow only in forests and fallen brown leaves often hide the already well-camouflaged cap. But when you do find them, you have a real treasure. They can grow very big: the biggest we ever found weighed 863 grammes, or about two pounds. They're firm-fleshed, they don't shrink in the cooking, and they can be easily dried and kept throughout the winter for flavouring. Those expensive little packets of dried porcini are ceps under their Italian name. If you're lucky enough to find them, cook them simply. Sliced quite thinly, saute them in good olive oil with salt and black pepper. It's worth noting that mushrooms in general have a peculiarity: they absorb salt quite remarkably. You really do have to use more salt on them than anything else, or you just won't taste it.

There are two other common and easily recognised mushrooms that are also very good to eat; they are the parasol and the giant puff-ball. As its name suggests the parasol is a large capped, thin stemmed mushroom that grows in pastures. Pick only the cap, as the stems are fibrous and indigestible. The caps will separate from the stems fairly easily; they're joined by a ball and socket joint. Try not to disturb the stem and its roots if you're picking them, since if you do the mushroom will take time to recover and will fruit less. I turn the parasols gill side up, put a knob of butter in the hollow where the stem was, add a pinch of salt and black pepper and pop it under the grill. Couldn't be simpler or tastier.

Giant puff-balls are unmistakable. Round, pearly white, and frequently bigger than a football, it means that a single specimen can provide a meal for a family. When they're old they turn into a mass of brown powder which is the mushroom's spores, but before that happens the flesh is white and firm and extremely good to eat. My favourite way of eating it is to cut it into 1/4 inch thick steaks and dip them in beaten egg. Five minutes in a frying pan and it's done.

magicbastarder

they've a few books on edible mushrooms in dubray books on grafton street. you'd still want to be cautious, in case the photos aren't clear enough.

fits

Well I'd be pretty confident with the chanterelles, not at all with the cepes...

Alun

magicbastarder wrote:

they've a few books on edible mushrooms in dubray books on grafton street. you'd still want to be cautious, in case the photos aren't clear enough.

I agree. It's a similar situation to books on any aspect of wildlife, be it birds, trees, flowers or whatever, i.e. you can pretty much guarantee that whatever you see out there won't quite match 100% with what is portrayed in the book, be it a drawing or a photograph. For most things this isn't the end of the world, but in the case of mushrooms it could be potentially dangerous. I've got a mushroom book and have been out hunting on a few occasions, but whenever I've found something that looks a likely candidate, there's always been something not quite 100% right, either the colour is slightly different, or the shape is not quite the same, and I've always erred on the side of caution and left them where they are