The myths of hunting wild mushrooms

 I am mildly obsessive. There are two books in my possession which act as a kind of hyper obsession catalysts, one being Jim Murray's Whisky Bible and the other being a similar sized pocket reference book on wild mushrooms by Shelley Evans and Geoffrey Kibby (Dorling Kindersly Pocket Nature series). I sit and read these books from cover to cover, I flick through their pages when I can't sleep, I read facts on rare beasts that I may never see, pick or drink. They are small, not too wordy and fact based in a clear alpha numeric order with a logical structure of classifications and sub species. They sooth my brain with geeky goodness and lull my listlessness with lists and lots more lists to boot. Of course the actual point of these books is to provide an easy and informative reference source for navigating an area with a vast amount of variation and some possible danger (less so in whisky). But what is most important is not the facts that they contain, it is the navigational help along your personal journey and experiences they facilitate. The confidence in having someone else to run your choices against, the shared expertise to make informed decisions, the realisation of possibility. This blog is not about whisky but about a recent experience picking mushrooms.



View over Loch Lomond from the slopes of Beinn Eich

  Last week was a bad week, I mean properly shit. I haven't had much work since graduating from the Royal Clown School so have spent a lot of time at home, on my own watching repeats of Top Gear. On Thursday I found out that an interview was unsuccessful for a job which would have been perfect for me. I was properly down in the dumper trucks. To break the cycle I took myself for a walk up Beinn Dubh near Luss on the bonny banks of Loch Lomond. It would have been a glorious walk in clear weather but the rain came in so I couldn't make the summit. I broke off track to head down hill... literally. The first thing to remember about Scottish Highlands is that main reason why it is wild and sparsely populated is because it is bloody hard work to do anything there. Unlike the pastoral lowlands there are no pleasant meadows, instead mile after mile of steeply inclined, bleak, boggy, midge infested wilderness where the weather could turn on you in an instant and ticks and cleggs want to suck your blood and eat your brains.



The low cloud and rain we all love

After a long tough ramble down the side of the glen I reached a small track leading back to the dryness of my parked car on Glen Luss. Wringing wet and probably covered in deer ticks (I saw several large stags in their magnificence and heard many more roaring across the hills, in fact I used deer tracks to make my way back down to the road). I was feeling a little more alive, the point of this jaunt. Then I saw one. The first rule of wild mushrooms is that they always turn up when you least expect them, therefore if you are a true mushroom hunter you should always be looking for them out the corner of your eye.



 The narrow lane was lined by steep banks and birch forest. The steep banks exposed the root mass of the birch trees and there for all to see were some lovely examples of orange birch boletes or possibly Foxy Boletes which live symbiotically with the trees. From my experience public roads and paths often yield more results for the mushroom hunter than the wilder depths of the wood, mushrooms although in the grey area between plant and animal aren't as shy as the furry types with legs. A quick reassurance from my trusty reference book gave me good reason to pick a few for the pot.

And here was my haul! A mixture of boletus mainly the orange birch/foxy ones, a couple of brown birch boletes and some grey coloured slate boletes. There was one rogue one with a slight red hue to the stem which I disposed of quickly. Always cross reference mushrooms and if in any form of doubt at all do not eat! So with a lovely lot of wild foods to cook with I set about dinner, I had some simple fajitas and refried beans planned so thought I could use the mushrooms in the main fajita mix, frying them quickly in a hot wok so not to stew them in their own juices as they were very wet from the conditions of picking.

 And here was our feast. Ooh it could be taken from an article in the weekend Guardian or from Hugh Fearnley-Whittenstall's latest book, River Cottage Smug. But here is the reality; the mushrooms were SHIT. No seriously, they cooked down to a nasty bland slimy mush in a matter of seconds and were genuinely a bit unpleasant to eat. Now I have found many other species which were great to eat such as Ceps/Penny buns/Porcini, Chanterelles, Fairy ring champignons, horse mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, hedgehog fungus and field mushrooms. But these bolete's despite being described as edible and tasty in my field guide were not. It could well have been because they were older specimens, they were not decomposing or maggot infested but were very wet and saturated with water. So possibly in better condition they could have been good, maybe. But here is the lesson, wild foods are unpredictable and as fashionable and twee as the idea of eating from the wild and foraging ones way back to the good life may sound in reality you may well end up slightly disappointed. So here's my advice, read your guide books, fill your head with knowledge and keep your eye out when walking in the countryside or anywhere in actual fact but don't expect that massive haul of beautiful porcini. Just know that they are out there and if you are lucky enough to stumble their way you could spot them from the mushroom majority.