Posted: Fri Nov 12, 04 10:15 pm Post subject: So Many Field Blewits
I succumbed. I couldn't help it. I went hunting field blewits on the way home. As a result of that I now have over a stone of them, many of them now drying. Can't throw a stick around here without getting a blewit at the moment.
I've got a plan now to give some peole as Christmas presents a package of a bottle of homebrew wine, and a jar each of dried mushrooms and jam or chutney.
Having only recently discovered Feild Blewitts, I now find that I am tripping over them all the time too. Trimming the goats feet today produced a sizable haul although nowhere near a stone !
All I have to do now is find my next species and hopefully I will see them everywhere too.
Anneka, what I'm hearing is that field blewits are having their best year in ages all over the country. It's rare there's ever a season when there seems to be one mushroom appearing everywhere. Although I couldn't leave the house in the autumn of 2002 without finding Volvariella speciosa.
If you can get an eye for fairy ring mushrooms, then at the right time of year, after a bit of rain, you'll be forever tripping over them
I do see them but really don't have any idea as too how to cook them, feel that I ought to toddle off and read your article a bit more carefuly now . Just in case, it's just that I was so overjoyed with the blewitts and fairy ring mushrooms do seem so insubstantial .
Fairy ring shrooms have a really almondy, aromatic tint to them. They've not got a strong flavour, but if I were to compile a top ten favourite list they'd be in it. I often end up eating them as I pick them, which is a bad idea for all sorts of reasons
Frstly, you've got the risk of maggots. The only thing worse than biting something and finding a maggot in it is biting it and finding half a maggot!
You've also got to contend with the fact that they've just pushed ther way through humus rich soil. They're covered in soil bacteria, some of which can be nasty. You at least want to cook them to kill those bugs off. Chanterelles are especially known for this; if memory serves there are some Pseudomonas bacteria that you find on them that you don't really want to ingest in any quantity.
And then there's just the plain good habit you should be in when picking wild mushrooms. Some of them can be quite unsettling raw (blewits, for example, some peole find indigestible raw). And some toxins are heat labile.
Lastly, there's the intriguing truth that very often the best thing to eat a fungus is another fngus. The likelyhood of coming across a really nasty mold eating a mushroom is really remote, but the likelyhood of coming across one that'll taste awful and make you a bit unsettled is somewhat greater. Better to get the mushroom cooked, it reduces that risk too.
But all that said, I eat a lot of raw mushrooms...
Given those options, you must really like them. I'll take the risk and give it a go, but I would like to know if there is a particular way of cooking them that is good.
!
. Just in case, it's just that I was so overjoyed with the blewitts and fairy ring mushrooms do seem so insubstantial 
.
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