Rowi(na) is a reader who is now based in Stockholm, Sweden. My recent post on the fresh but rather anemic chanterelles I found at Santis delicatessen prompted her to write Marketman with obvious excitement to let me know that she and her husband love to forage for wild mushrooms in some woods outside Stockholm. She promised to send some photos of her recent mushroom haul and let me tell you, I was FLOORED. Floored, I say again. If I had access to wild mushrooms like these I would be in seventh heaven. The first photo is a close up of a King’s portion of freshly foraged wild chanterelles, aren’t they utterly stunning?
The second photo above is a beautiful still life, with a huge tomato of a “Sunrise” variety, I wonder if it is considered an “heirloom” tomato, then a basket of gorgeous chanterelles and in the back, some extremely sought after black trumpet mushrooms…
The third photo has another view of the chanterelle bounty with a few unidentified larger mushrooms on the lower right hand corner…
And the final luscious photo is of the largest chanterelles being sauteed in a pan, on their way to a creamy sauce to be served with lamb… Ah, thank you so much Rowina for making me salivate about a meal nearly halfway around the world. I should also mention that other readers have sent me photos before, hydrangeas from New Zealand, Apicio’s batch of Marketman ensaimadas from Canada, and several others…but I am embarrassed to say that I have only now figured out how to doodle with them so I could post them! Again, thanks for these photos and I hope Marketmanila readers savor this rare and eye-catching treat from the woods of Sweden!!!
16 Responses
I’m a big fan of Mushrooms. All kinds of Mushrooms. This post makes me happy!
Thanks MM
Chanterelle mushrooms shine so well on Rowina’s side of the planet and good for her innovative ways of utilizing them. I always count my blessings and make every bit of it in a most useful way I could come up – innovation, motivation, inspiration and conscious endeavors in what I could use all things I could get my hands on this side of the planet where I live and enjoy them. I can come up tinolang manok with spinach leaves, cube potatoes and lots of chilis not a blue blooded one but it is good enough to satisfy my hankering for tinola. When papaya and dahong nang sili or malunggay are available in my grocery then I will be feasting on the real thing. Thanks for sharing these photos with us and thank you Rowi.
When I was a kid, my yaya and I would forage for camote tips in a nearby vacant lot. And kangkong, too! Can people still do that now?
Socky, unfortunately, there arent many vacant lots left where we live, so my kids cant forage the way I used to. But when we do go to our beach house, I take them on foraging trips that, depending on the season, can net indian mangoes, sineguelas, duhat, warm-from-the-sun sugarcane, kamachile, kamote and their tops, wild kang kong, malunggay, papayas, bananas, native corn, sili, pandan, wild loofah, sampaloc… Sometimes we have to ask permission from farmers to pick stuff, but they always oblige when they see sweaty city kids with baskets excited to pick lowly kamias from their abundant tree!
I wouldnt dare forage for ‘shrooms here though. Im not eager to accidentally go on a “trip”, to the psychedelic beyond or the hospital :P
I love love love chanterelles! There is this blog I follow called Nami Nami (nami-nami(DOT)blogspot(DOT)com)…she (Pille) lives in Estonia and goes foraging often (for wild weeds and berries too!)…I try to live vicariously through her :) When I was working in Finland and the Netherlands this, was one of my favorite sights at the market…crates of these chanterelles (and trompets de mort, morels, and all sorts of wild mushrooms) that looked like they had been just picked from the forest! How I miss that…
MM, I have a question. How will you know if the mushroom that grows in your garden is safe to eat?
asunta, tough question. By experience, apparently, and since many edible mushrooms can look like poisonous ones, and vice-versa, it is an education that one values dearly… I haven’t foraged for mushrooms myself, and I would be worried about ending up on the john for hours, or worse, the hospital if I did so on my own…
our island is known for “magic mushrooms” :-)…but they’re the first ones to go as the Mangyans can sell them for a fortune, if not use them, themselves. We’re often told that edible mushrooms pop up after a lightning storm. Thank God, we live near a botanist who cultivates them so we easily know that wht we get from him are edible. My mother-in-law in Germany is an expert in wild mushrooms and forages a lot of chanterelles and morels herself. Their forests are really havens for walks and foragings. Cozy-looking photos! Thank you Rowina and Marketman!
I was told once that if the mushroom has a ring under its cap, it’s poisonous. As a child, we used to get mushrooms that grow on banana tree trunks (the most common type sold in markets, white/grey/brown like small bulbs when unopened, umbrellas when it has bloomed); fruit tree trunks (tiny,fan-shaped white colored mushrooms); and on ipa/rice hull fields (small mushrooms with thin stems & like long-handled umbrellas)… but never the ones that grow on Carabao poop. The usually “come out” after the rain.
ahhh.. beautiful stockholm! They have lots of protected forest so no wonder that mushrooms abound. Such beauties… those chanterelles!
When I was growing up in a farm in Iloilo, there were several types of mushrooms that one can forage for.
After thunderstorms in June, July and August, one can go to the fields and especially target the small mounds usually filled with termites. The mushrooms there are whitish and slimy when sauteed. These were called “uhong”.
On the other hand, the ones that grow towards the end of the rainy season, under the camachile trees and even in the punso near the malunggay tree in front of our house are brownish but they are also very tasty. They are also slimy when cooked. Sometimes they even grow in the cracked portions of the cement floor in the ground floor bedroom. These are called “mayamaya”.
Also towards the cooler months one can chance upon a collection of “ligbos” in the forest floor. These are more meaty and not as slimy, but I found them not as tasty. They are whiter than uhong. Almost always they grow in dozens maybe even hundreds.
Hej MM,
Tusen tack (a thousand thanks) for the Chantarelles’ post. I never expected that you would feature all the photos, much less write a post of the forest finds. I’m very happy to see them so well captured in your blog and thank you for such an encouraging write-up. Congratulations on your weekend doodling!
And thank you fellow readers for your lovely comments. Joey, I also enjoy reading Pille’s blog esp. about her foraging for mushrooms and other forest goodies. The Baltic and Finnish people are more creative mushroom enthusiasts than the Swedes.
Mushroom hunting has become a passion for me since I caught the “fever” when I joined my first foraging some years back. After I picked one of the most deadly white mushrooms called Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa) and was gently but firmly corrected by our expert guide never to pick white mushrooms esp. with a ring under its cap (as cited by Allen), my curiosity and interest were aroused. While still learning Swedish, and with my husband’s encouragement, I read every literature available on mushrooms (mostly in Swedish) and hence the mushroom love affair began… and still going strong.
If any of the readers would like to see the mushrooms that could be picked in Sweden, please check out http://www.svampguiden.com. Only in Swedish am afraid, but worth looking at are Matsvampar (food mushrooms) and Giftsvampar (poisonous mushrooms).
Hey Marketman,
You ever shrooms, ha ha
Ohlala, I’m one for the mushrooms! We used to live in the South of France and my husband’s family owned a country home(not too far from St.Tropez)where mushrooms abound,we had girolles,cêpes,pied de moutons,amanite de César etc. Just lucky that I married a Frenchman who taught me a lot about mushrooms,he himself got it from his parents,his Mom being a Botanist.
Rowi,I wish I could go to Sweden and go mushroom hunting,I was green w/ envy just looking at the pix of girolles,coz where we live now is different,well, we have seafoods and sometimes we go seashell(mussels,clams) gathering in our Savage coast…but my “péché mignon” is champignon!
I’m not very good at leaving comments but like mushrooms I just pop in and voila! Merci.
okay, i think the mushrooms that i have now are the ones described by ntgerald. they are brownish and look pretty interesting. hmm i will check if there is this ring thing.
Hej MM,
I’m so thrilled by your readers’ comments. Thank you again for this post. May I take the liberty of commenting on their observations?
ntgerald – i knew there were “kabute” growing in the Phils. (my pre-Swedish mushroom days) but I didn’t know that you had specific local names for them. Fascinating! It would be interesting to know their scientific names, as it would be easier to identify which family of mushrooms they belong to and maybe find a European/Scandinavian counterpart. I guess the brownish ones you named could be in the same family as the cepe/porcini.
asunta – there are also brown mushrooms that are poisonous, with or without the ring. Rule of thumb in foraging: when in doubt, don’t and always ask an expert for advice. There are thousands of mushrooms out in the forests (this part of the world) and only a hundred or so are edible and some extremely poisonous.
sdf – thanks for your comment. Am fascinated by Amanita cesaria as this is not found in Sweden. Only in France and Italy and the Balkan states (I think). Have you eaten this rare delicacy? You have to be 101% sure that it is as the cousins of this mushroom are all poisonous. I know that these are sold in some open markets in Paris during the season. Some areas in Sweden are just a foragers’ dream but where the rainfall is little, then the mushrooms are hardly there, and that’s what we’re experiencing in the Stockholm areas now. We had such luck that day we found the chantarelles. Seashell gathering is not a bad alternative to mushroom hunting?