A Feast of Field Mushrooms

Should one pay attention to the dreaded health and safety experts who give us dire warnings against eating wild mushrooms? Why, instead do they not encourage us to educate ourselves, so that we can identify them properly?

In France, where things are better organised and have more respect for their native foods, you just bring your freshly picked mushrooms into your local pharmacist (they are trained to identify them for you) and then head to the kitchen. They respect their edible fungi and have a useful code of practice, asking foragers to carry their picked mushrooms in a basket to allow the spores to spread and to cut them with a knife to protect the underground mycelia.

This year from August through to October, we have been feasting on wild field mushrooms in County Kilkenny, it has been the best mushroom harvest for several years. Rumours abound of neighbours competing with each other to be the first to gather the overnight arrivals, each having their own favourite secret spot. There were reports of fields, not too far away, being white with mushrooms at dawn. 

Not long ago, children earned pocket money by picking mushrooms, threading them on long stands of grass and selling them by the roadside. Now, we have to pick our own.

Freshly picked Kilkenny mushrooms being prepared for mushroom ketchup.

A couple of buckets (next time we will use baskets) were filled with wonderful fresh mushrooms, with their magic earthy smell. On our arrival back home, the first move was to immediately cook some for breakfast, using good quality country butter, frying a few free range bacon rashers and adding the mushrooms for the best imaginable breakfast.

The surplus mushrooms were made into a delicious soup and the remainder into mushroom ketchup, using an old fashioned recipe that called for copious quantities of brandy.

Email: kilkennyseakale@gmail.com