Shroomin' on a Summer Afternoon

We have been out with our friend, Lynette, to hunt the wild chanterelle on three occasions now. No guns. No bows and arrows. All you need to bag these babies is a pair of rain pants and a fairly decent sense of direction. WHERE we hunt them is a major secret, so don't ask. I am allowed to tell you why we hunt them. They are DELICIOUS! And free!

Foraging is, in many ways, more rewarding than growing. It is, of course, our ancestral aspiration to find or hunt our food rather than to pop a seed into tilled earth and nurture it into sustenance. Without really thinking about the difference between the two acts, when we are out gathering mushrooms, I can feel that distinction keenly. What I hunt to eat is meant to be there. It is of that place. It is mine because I find it and harvest it. It tastes like the soil and the air and the trees that grow nearby. I have to work to find the food, but the work is done almost as much with my eyes as with my back or my legs. I have to see it before I can gather it. If you've ever picked a bowl of wild blackberries, or if you have thrown a line in water to catch a fish, or even found an egg hidden in a secret corner of the barn, you may know what I'm talking about.

I honor the growing of food, too, but as often as not, what I plant results in failure due to slugs, a tomato that never ripens, or a $10 bowl of salad (if you put a value on my time spent weeding and watering). While pulling a ripe carrot out of the ground is wondrous, finding a mushroom nestled and nearly hidden in moss on the forest floor is magic.

Chanterelles are the only mushroom that I have ever hunted. I feel comfortable with them because they are distinctive in appearance and there are few mimics that would be dangerous to eat. And to be sure, I have always had someone knowledgeable looking through my basket at the end of the search to make sure I haven't been fooled by a look alike. Chanterelles are a natural companion to eggs and cream which, if this isn't the first time you've read my blog, you know are ingredients that are always near at hand for me.

When we went out most recently, it had been too dry and was perhaps a bit too early. What mushrooms we found were small and there weren't many of them; but we managed to find enough to perfectly fill a quiche. Their compactness actually made them a bit more substantial and denser in texture than the hand-sized chanterelles that we found last fall. When I sauteed them before throwing them in the crust, I only softened them enough to leave them with a bit of tooth. With the cream, the Swiss cheese, the grate of nutmeg, it was a delight to behold and even better to taste. And maybe best just to realize that what we ate that night, we foraged that day.