Wacky weather brings on the Porcini

Photo by Robert Alexander

Weather is always a major source of speculation and conversation the world around. We never have a shortage of that around here. This has been another odd year weather wise, and so we find ourselves discussing it's oddness in terms of our beloved mushroom or more to the point, porcino season. Our hills are famous for their porcini or boletus edulis, to be specific. There are a host of other varieties around as well, like the ones you find before the porcini arrive and the ones that arrive signaling the end of the porcini season. Well, that is usually how it is during the autumn season. Spring time season usually is a brief affair, with the only porcino you find is what they here call the "white" variety, which if I am not mistaken I think it is the boletus variipes. The autumn season boasts the "moro or black" varieties, boletus edulis and a host of other variety of edible and ones that are oh so pretty, but oh so deadly. So, best to know what you are doing. Here you can go into any of the hospitals and they will identify or at the very least let you know if it is edible or not. If you buy them from along side of the road or in the market, most vendors usually have a tag on the crate verifying that the mushrooms have been inspected and are edible. We have a vendor in our little village not too far from the bottom of our road who collects all the mushrooms form the hunter and gathers of the area and ships them off to Torino every night during the season. Like I said before autumn is usually when the big mushroom action happens, but this year were going through the full autumn season now. It will be interesting to see how it plays out this autumn. Will we have a second season, or will this be the whole season and when it finishes its over for the year? 

Egle and her treasures

These are the burning questions that are bantered around our house, the home of the mildly crazy, ok, maybe down right, mad for mushrooms,  hunters and gatherers that I call my in laws and husband respectively.  

My husband sporting the latest in mushroom hunting attire

We eat wild mushrooms in quite a variety of ways, big slabs fried in bread crumbs, in risotto, with pasta, 

wild game stews, rustic tarts and the list continues on and on. To preserve them we either stick them in the freezer whole in ziplock bags, or saute them up with a little onion, garlic and parsley and freeze them in small batches for risotto and such. Very handy. We also dry them.

Drying porcini

My mother in laws specialty is preparing them for putting in jars either under oil or vinegar. They really are pretty that way and a most welcome gift for their friends. My in laws are still the type to give these types of gifts to their doctors or dentist or other types of professionals they deal with. I am known to bring along a loaf or two of my home made bread. Most people get very excited when they receive one of Egle's special jars of precious cargo. I do too, especially if it is under oil. I am not so wild about then in vinegar. It tends to overpower the mushrooms for my taste buds. 

Assorted Porcini and a few chanterelles

Porcini and other mushrooms under oil or vinegar.

Porcini under oil

It's not a difficult process, just time consuming. First and foremost you have to find the mushrooms, which can eat up some time, but at least you're out in the woods.

porcini "gold"

Then you need to thoroughly clean and wash them.

Porcini and chanterelles

What you need.

Sterilized jars and lids (usually water bathed for 20 minutes to sterilize)

You won't need them for a couple of days until after you prepare your mushrooms  

white wine vinegar

or olive oil, 

some bay leaves, one or two per jar (we have fresh ones available to us from nearby trees)

a few whole cloves, 1-2 per jar

Cleaned, dried  and ready to put in jars

After you have cleaned them, cut them into large chunks, maybe about 2 inches. 

They are then blanched for several minutes in a combination of water and vinegar, just to kill any bacterial on the outsides of the mushrooms. 

Dry them off and lay on  towels in a a spot to dry with a bit of wind if possible but out of direct sun. 

Leave to dry a day or two till they have released any liquid and are dry. 

Pack snugly and decoratively in your sterilized jars. 

Fill the jars with either oil or vinegar and  screw shut. 

Disclaimer!!!!! This is the way mountain and country people have been preserving their mushrooms for years. I know that you need to water bath the jars to insure a seal on the jar and to conform to food safety  recommendations. This is not a recipe to follow. I do not claim that this is fool proof. This is how my mother in law has been doing it for years with good results. She has a lot of experience and knows what she is doing. I wouldn't recommend this for everyone to try at home. I merely wanted to share the process of this specialty of our area. 

Porcini under vinegar and oil

Porcini Season

It's that time of the year again when I awaken before light to the sound of my father- in -law  lightly clomping down the stairs to go after the big game like Cinghiale, otherwise known in these parts as wild boar, whilst the steady whooming of the oh- so -serious porcino hunters make their way to their favorite part of our woods to stalk the much prized Edulis Boletus.

Yesterday, it was merely 60 cars that I counted parked along side the road as we dodged the traffic going to the market not including the Torino taxi that we see frequently at this time of year. What started out to look like a lean year for the king of mushrooms, has turned into a bonanza with all the weekend warriors that go along with.  Today we had a woman off the road in her cycling gear proceed to make her way around our yard and when asked if we could help her, she told us that she was having a closer look at all the mushrooms in our yard in case they were porcini. Surprise surprise, they were not.  We did however harvest these two pictured below, form certain parts of our garden that I hesitate to mention for fear of over zealous stalkers!

When we arrived at the market, it was quite the mushroom extravaganza. Mushrooms on almost every stall and naturally a mushroom in every pot. Ok, may not in every stall or pot, but it was a fantastic display everywhere in the market. Mostly they were porcini, but there were a smattering of other less prized varieties, of which I'm not so sure about the names, but some of them looked like the chicken of the woods variety. As I came to this stall I was surprised to see that these were from our village Pinasca, that is where we turn off when we make our way back homee up the hill. there's a good possibility that some of these mushrooms might have evne been from some of those people that park along side our road and scour the hill sides. As you can see they were pretty well picked over by the time we saw them. If you note the price is €9.50 per half kilo or just over a pound. Still a little pricey, but much cheaper than last week, but nothing like the price of when you find them yourself.

Our friends had the good fortune to find some fantastic specimens on their hike today, up to Cucetto for the views.  Nice schroomy finds, pictured below, huh?!

 

Can you guess what is on the menu tonight? No, well, it's mushroom risotto and perhaps a side of breaded sliced porcino steaks to go along with.  I made a rustic tart the other night with big slabs of porcini layered on top of tomini cheese in an olive oil crust and it was so scrumptious, that we ate it  before I could even think about getting a photo of it.  A similar recipe that you might want to try if you find yourself in a mushroom kind of mood is my" Porcini e Tomini in pasta sfoglia" recipe.

Whatever the case enjoy some woodsy treat of mushrooms any way you can, the season is upon us.

Porcini Pin up for today October 08

Ok, so I told a recent guest that the coming of the Chuidino mushrooms meant that is was the end of Porcino(boletus edulis) season. Strictly based on anecdotal information given to me by my in laws, sources of most conventional mountain wisdom. I did say that there might be a few random ones here and there but for the most part the season was done and dusted. But then Dante, my father-in-law came home with these beauties, Friday. after a little hike up to one of his favorite places where the mushrooms grow big and are not easily found unless you know.
Obviously, he knows.
So here are a few photos of what are called "Nero and Bianca" porcini. The red ones being the Nero and the little one the Bianca one. My mother-in -law said these are about 15 days old as you can tell by the look of the "sponge' underneath the cap. Just a little something to tide you over till I get my Slow food photos up and some recipes that are still in progress together.

Slow Food's "Salon del Gusto" Has Come and Conquered until 2008

And a good time was had by all!

Well..., that is after you actually got into the Slow Food Salon and the fun began. I would say it was well organized considering the enormity of the event and sheer numbers of presenters, vendors, producers and the scores of attendees. There were a few things they could improve on. It was a mass throng at the entrance with cash and card users mixed together, slowing down the process to a painful crawl. Major mistake to remember for the next edition,
Buy your tickets before hand,
on line, and don't wait in line to get in!

Then, of course, there were the masses of people. I found it difficult to get many shots of the products and such for the crowded booths. I also found it difficult to actually get to really check out the products as I found that I wanted to explore it all and that was a daunting task. Insight for next time. Perhaps skip the lunchtime afternoon crowds in favor of the late afternoon and evening lull. Or, take a couple of days to try and absorb it all. I found I was just trying to get my head around all the categories and what they all were actually trying to accomplish as well as elbow my way through. And this is from me that has been hovering around and checking out Slow Food for a number of years.

Our friends the Bernard family, had their family's mountain elixirs on display and sale again this year and seemed to be a rousing success. They took home another Maestro Del Gusto (Master of Taste) award this year. We have been trying to not only help them push up their exposure from loyal genepy consumers from our guests, but have been trying to find a distributor/exporter for their sending their products abroad, so that some of their already loyal consumers can receive it more easily. The Bernard family have been producing liquors/elixirs and infusions for over 100 years in a historical valley where there isn't a lot of work. The small business not only supports their family, but they employs local mountian people to caretake and raise many of the herbs and flowers, bringing in much needed money to the high valleys and helps to preserve the land and mountain culture.

We stopped by with my nephew and neice to sample the wares as they took a break from the Terre Madre symposium. Jeremy is a professioanal baker from Vermont and we were both struck by the lack of representation of bread at this massive event. Bread is such a fact of life as in the staff of life for Italians at any meal that I was quite taken aback by the lack of bread. Perhaps artisan bread is such a phenomena in America because it holds a different place in the meal. Pride of place in an American meal features warm bread usually as a filler until the meal comes. Whereas in Italy bread is a plate cleaner and imprtant, but different viewpoint, perhaps.
There were no shortages of cookies and tortes, or Italian specialties like chocolate and Torrone. So I found myself satisfied to explore those avenues.
I especially liked the hazelnut honey and butter.
It was great to see pasta being made and the enormous squash transformed into sculptured art. I, of course, took way too many cheese photos and the obligatory mushrooms as well. The tower of porcini in the picture are from a small factory in the Cuneo province a few valleys over. All the mushrooms are wild and hand picked. We are going to go over and have a look at their production some time as they were so friendly and proud of their operation and I am a lover of all things mushroom as well. The white and black truffles were from Alba, world known for it's truffle festival and auction.

Porcini Pin up of the Day

And the hunt continues! The steady stream of cars continue to whizz past Bella Baita before dawn and everywhere you go the local osterias are selling "Nostrani Funghi "
(our local mushrooms, assumed Porcini as none other get to be called funghi in local legend)Ok so now hopefully I have set the record straight by replacing the capre photo with a proper procini photo. Mea culpa!

The Hills Are Alive with the Sound Of Mushroom Hunters!

Tis the season for the passion of Porcinis to overtake Italians and send them running to the hills at the crack of dawn in search of the King Boletus Edulis and any other mushroom they can get their hands on and a few they shouldn't. It's the power of the Porcini. The hills are swarmed with funghi hunters swarming like bees looking for a new hive! Last year after a 2 year drought I was awakend one Sunday morning befire it was light and before 6 am by the sound of vehicle after vehicle racing up the hill in the fog to stalk the wild porcini. I fell back to sleep after 37 cars in less than an hour.

This year it's a bit calmer, but only just. Our neighbor counted 100 cars on the road the other morning before lunch and every one disperses for a bit of food and drink, leaving only the most determined alone to carry on the hunt.
But Honestly you're not really considered a seasoned(or respected) hunter unless you get the white and black Porcini. All others finds pale in bragging rights!

The fine examples above were found yesterday by Fabrizio's mother Egle, who has the "eagle"(Egle) eye for finding mushrooms when others have given up. Well I must be off to cook up some mushrooms for later use. Let's see shall it be breaded fried steaks, risotto, or big fat egg noodles with thick slices of porcini?.........humm.....