Spent yesterday afternoon harvesting winter chantarelles (traktkantarell) as much as we could carry out of the woods and almost all were frozen solid making some unusual sounds in the woods as they fell….
Spent yesterday afternoon harvesting winter chantarelles (traktkantarell) as much as we could carry out of the woods and almost all were frozen solid making some unusual sounds in the woods as they fell….
To celebrate our good friends’ Jurgen Wegter and Ingvild Haga’s 50th birthdays together with Meg’s 50-year anniversary of arriving in Europe for the first time (in Southampton near where I lived at the time) as well as my 50 year anniversary of leaving school and a memorable holiday with 20-30 school friends in Newton Ferrers in Devon, we made a special gourmet dinner of green mac-cheese. It had masses of veg mixed in – the year’s first broad beans and swiss chard, chicory, common sow thistle (Sonchus oleraceus), Allium senescens leaves, shallots and garlic from last year, rehydrated winter chantarelles, golpar – ground seed of hogweed – Heracleum spp., together with ramsons salt, chili, sun dried tomatoes and mustard, all in a wholegrain spelt white sauce with wholegrain spelt pasta; it was topped with alpine bistort bulbils).
Not to be left out, the Extreme Salad Man contributed one of his Meditteranean diet inspired multispecies salads commemorating it is now almost 20 years since he put together a salad from home grown ingredients in Malvik comprising 537 ingredients. something the world hasn’t seen before or since (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=18997). The record was set on 24th August 2003. This time there were a mere 106 ingredients….sad to see, but he must be losing it….
Thanks to Jurgen for the salad pictures:
Spending so much time in the 3 gardens I look after – The Edible Garden; The World and Demonstration Gardens at Væres Venner Community Garden and the Allium Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Gardens in Trondheim – I don’t get into the surrounding forest so often. Yesterday, we had a fantastic day foraging fungi in the forest nearby in Malvik and the forest shared with us and these will mostly be dried. The following edibles were picked:
Winter chanterelle / traktkantarell (grows in damp mossy locations in the forest)
Gul trompetsopp / yellow foot (on the edge of bogs)
Chantarelle / Kantarell – a bit late for this, but we nevertheless found a few patches
Rødgul piggsopp / terracotta hedgehog
Piggsopp / hedgehog fungus (Hydnum rufescens)
I’ve already shown that all the windows are full of drying seeds at the moment, now it’s standing room only as the tables and chairs are now full of drying fungi :)
The forest has unlimited supplies of winter chanaterelles (traktkantarell) at the moment, so making the most of it and drying as many as we can! They’re now much larger than last time!
It was a busy weekend picking our winter supplies of winter chantarelles (traktkantarell) in the forest. This abundant species is mycorrhizal, associated in Norway with spruce, usually in mossy woods.
The forest is now full of edible fungi, witness today’s haul of mostly chantarelles, winter chantarelle, hedgehog fungi (two species) and puffballs (Norw: kantarell, traktkantarell, lys- og rødgule-piggsopp og røyksopp)
Please let me know if you can ID any of the fungi!
(Sopptur = Mushroom picking / fungal foray)
Still masses of winter chantarelle in the woods despite for frosts a week ago…and a few chantarelle and hedgehog fungus….