Today’s Wild Mushroom Harvest

I love the autumnal colors of these!

Ceps (porcini), the undisputed king of edible fungi (to me, anyway) – the Swedes even call it after one of their kings, karljohanssvamp, some of its relatives, and of course the gorgeous gold of the forest – chanterelles.

Ceps (Porcini), other boletes, chanterelles and other mixed wild edibles!

Ramaria flava (aka changle or gul fingersvamp in Swedish) is both, edible and absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful.

Ramaria flava in situ

Ramaria flava aka Gul Fingersvamp

Tomorrow, all or most of these will become a wild mushroom ragout to celebrate the visit of my friend Sophie from England for the weekend.  In meantime, they make a beautiful still life in my kitchen.  It is said for a good reason that people eat with their eyes!

Some other mushrooms were ‘picked’ only in photos.

Amanita muscaria

Amanita are extremely poisonous, so no, unlike Super Mario, you should really not, not at all touch any of the cutely spotted mushrooms.  Nor – gods and little apples forbid! – try to eat them!  Really!

Now, a word of general mushroomy warning – if you are unsure of identification, do not eat a wild-picked mushroom.  Or invest in a good mushroom-identification book.  Some mushrooms can be incredibly toxic, and while some mushroom species are both, safe and delicious, I would by no means wish my readers to mis-identify something, eat it and do themselves harm.

Gone Huntin’ (Red Pine Mushroom aka Saffron Milk Cap)

I love Sweden.  Have I mentioned that?

I am sure I must have, and for many reasons, but today I mention it because of its clean environment, gorgeous untouched forest patches scattered throughout the capital city, and the fact that when you find one of these beauties not 50 meters from a bus stop, it’s quite safe to just pick it up, carry it home, and eat it.  Oh… did I mention?  I found it right next to a bus stop, in a little patch of pines on the way to T’s mother’s birthday party.

Beautiful. And orange! I love orange!

… and so we arrived at the party, me in my stiletto heels, carrying brightly-wrapped presents, and a mushroom proudly held in my hand like a bouquet of flowers.  (Some people think I am a little strange, but thankfully T and his parents just think I am adorable and funny when I do things like that.  Lucky me!)

There are many attractive fungi out there, true, but most of the edible ones won’t win any prizes for sheer beauty – and the Red Pine Mushroom (Lactarius deliciosus) is one that certainly does.  And not only is it orange and pretty, it’s also outright amazingly delicious.   I mean… Lactarius deliciosus – how often does the Latin name spell it out this much?!  This little thing is right up there in the taste department with porcini and chanterelles in my opinion (and in that of many others), so if you are lucky enough to find it – and identify it, which is very very important with mushrooms! – then by all means, do pick and eat it.  Preferably fried in good extra-virgin olive oil and a bit of garlic.

Blissfully, in the case of Red Pine Mushroom, identification is easy, as there is really nothing around that looks very much like it.  First – it’s orange!  Or salmon-pink if you like.  Not many mushrooms look like it.  Second, see the bright spotting on the stalk?  Yes, those are specific too!  And if you cut it, it should bleed a little, in a bright-orange color like so.  Third, they are cone-shaped, with a depression in the middle and upraised sides.  Fourth, look for the target!

See the circles on the cone-shaped top?

Fifth, the pretty and yummy thing also has a rather unmistakable last clue – in bruised spots, it will turn dark swamp-pistachio green, like this:

... and look at the cute heart!

… so, obviously, realising that the Red Pine shroom season has arrived, today I am arming myself with a pair of trainers (and those who know me know there is only a few things in my life which get me off heels… mushroom hunting being one of those few), a plastic bucket and a tiny knife, and I am going to march myself out into the nearest pine forest patch and hunt for these.  Lucky for me the nearest patch is right outside the front door – and the next large one is ten minutes’ walk away!

Wish me luck! (And none to the mushrooms!)

Now, a word of general mushroomy warning – if you are unsure of identification, do not eat a wild-picked mushroom.  Or invest in a good mushroom-identification book.  Some mushrooms can be incredibly toxic, and while this specific mushroom species is both, safe and delicious, I would by no means wish my readers to mis-identify something, eat it and do themselves harm.

The Wild Yeast Sourdough Experiment – Day 7

Fast-forward another day, and we are now on Day 7 of the wild yeast sourdough experiment I began last week.

The premise:  there is wild yeast on wheat flour you buy, especially wholegrain.  I have wanted to culture a sourdough starter with local Swedish bacteria and yeast (wheat is Swedish too) the original way – i.e. without adding bakers’ yeast or fruit (yeast growing on fruit surface is, generally speaking, the wrong species of yeast anyway).

The past few days, I’ve been feeding the starter culture white wheat flour rather than wholegrain, as per idea idea that wholegrain has more microbes on it, and once the culture is started, it is better to let it multiply in a cleaner medium than keep introducing new organisms into the mix.  So, to summarize, I started the culture with whole wheat flour, tap water and a few drops of liquid from natural yogurt bucket, and then continuously fed the starter white flour and tap water at 2:1 volume proportion (roughly equivalent to 1:1 weight proportion) twice per day (morning and evening) after discarding half of the starter each time to avoid waste.

I have not sterilized anything after the initial washing-out of jar with boiling water before adding tap water and flour to start.  Again, the theory here is that a healthy growing culture should be able to keep pathogens out on its own – which it appears to be doing fine.  I have heard that some people have mold growing on the sides of the jar of culture, but mine hasn’t as much as shown a spot.  On morning of day 2 of culture, the top layer of the starter looked slightly darker than the rest of it and there was a slight sweet off-smell, but the colour disappeared after the first feeding of day 2, and the scent was gone a day or two after and had not come back, which indicates that the culture is both, healthy and is fighting the competing (pathogenic and otherwise) organisms on its own.  So far so good!

Now, at the end of first week, the starter is doing great.  Both yesterday and today it has risen to about-or-over twice its volume between feedings (check), and the smell is now clean and fresh fermenting sourdough smell, with no off scents (check): it passes the two culture quality tests, and today it is a week old so it also passes the “don’t use starter before it is a week old” instruction.  I have discarded half of it and fed it last night, but this morning I doubled it (instead of discarding half) as I would like to try baking with it once it has risen to twice its volume again (hopefully in a few hours).  The raising and bake-off of bread are obviously the ultimate test – and objective.  Wish me luck!