Saturday 13th
and Friday 19th October blessed us with beautiful Autumnal sunshine,
combine this with the idyllic setting of the Helford Passage and you have a
perfect setting for some fun in the woods, finding mushrooms.
We all met at
Gear Farm (they do amazing pasties) where Justin, the Head Ranger, gave an
enthusiastic and engaging talk on the variety of fungi to be found in the area,
what to eat, what to leave and useful ID tips to find out what you’ve picked.
Armed with our new knowledge, we set off into the woods to explore.
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| Justin talking about the varied Fungi in the area |
Unfortunately,
the wet weather has meant a bad year for a lot of mushrooms but we still found
a large variety of edible ones including chicken of the woods (tastes like
chicken!), beefsteak fungus (aptly named- it looks just like a raw steak and
sometimes oozes red ‘blood’), and the amethyst deceiver (a beautiful, bright
purple mushroom), unfortunately the much sought after Chanterelle eluded us.
We also found a range of others including the shiny,
pure white porcelain mushroom which grows high up in beech trees, bright yellow
sulphur tufts (named for their colour), false deceivers, giant funnel mushroom,
yellow club fungus, bright red Russulas and a false death cap.
We came across a
deadly poisonous destroying angel. This is one of the deadliest mushrooms known
to man, and can cause kidney and liver failure within 24 hours. Needless to
say, we left this well alone as when handling deadly fungi, there isn’t
mushroom for error!
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| The fruits of our forage (plus a pasty) |
At the end of
the walk, everyone tucked into a Gear farm pasty and enjoyed the sunshine on
the banks of the Helford. We cooked up the mushrooms that we collected and had
a taste, they were lovely and no-one on the walk has died to my knowledge.
I feel a lot
more confident about mushrooms after the walks, Justin knows a huge amount and
is a good teacher. With just a few simple rules, you can collect edible
mushrooms in confidence, the number one rule being that if you are unsure of
the species, leave it! There are only about four or five deadly mushrooms in
the UK and the vast majority are inedible but not dangerous, especially in
small amounts.
If you wish to
find out more, keep a look out for our future fungi forays. The best times of
year for fungi are autumn and spring, don’t be afraid to pick them, mushrooms
are great an d you never know what you’re going to find, just make triple sure
that you know what you are picking.
Happy foraging!
Ed
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