A relaxed walk in the woods and some mushrooms picking...

[Herlock]

Hi there! Went up for a walk and some mushroom picking last Saturday . Just walked through the forests, taking it easy and enjoyed my time. I choose an easy trail, keeping me below the tree line, but indulged in a lot of off-trail diversions, exploring more recessed parts of the woods, hidden clearings, searching for mushrooms . The trail coasted a couple of shepherds sheds where some activities were still ongoing. Soon the cattle will be taken back down in the valleys. Also, worth to notice for me, were some magnificent and very old beech trees, really huge in size . The woods start to show some autumn colors, very nice ! Mushrooms collection, at the end of the day, was pretty good, got some porcini and some finferli. Cooked them with some chopped garlic, fresh parsley and half a glass of white wine . Went good with grilled chicken breasts ! Wife and kids liked it! A few pics, just to share! Next time I’ll go for chestnuts ! Knife with me the G. Sakai NHF .

 

[Herlock]

Some more pics...

 

[Mikel_24]

oh boy.... it has been a long time since my last outing! Great scenery. Seems like you all had a great time. I hope the winter arrives soon... I know (because I have friends that live there) that there is already some snow in the Pirinees... Winter is coming! (ok, not yet, but almost)

 

[mete]

Can't eat mushrooms any more but we had found a great way that really brings out the flavor. In a pot with cover , one large lump of butter put in mushrooms , cover on and
simmer for about 25min .excellent.
Our colors have started , then temperatures got very high , a second summer !! I heard they found a wolf in Roma, coming back ? . But don't believe the myth of wolves founding Roma , it was the Etruscans ! They needed housing for the Latins !

 

[John A. Larsen]

Again great photos of some stunning landscapes! The mushroom dish looks great too! John

 

[WILLIAM.M]

Excellent photos
Thanks for sharing

 

[SW-EDC]

Very nice!

 

[lambertiana]

Beautiful!

 

[Herlock]

Hi!

M Mikel_24 : Thanks! Yes, we also had some snow already up there but hopefully the real winter will come a bit later on . Let us enjoy the autumn a little more! Still waiting for roasted chestnuts, pumpkins, more mushrooms, young wine, artichokes, figs, etc. Waiting for the first dense fogs and the carpets of yellow, brown and red leaves, the drizzling rain, etc. Getting out, going for an hike, even a simple one, it’s always a time well spent ! Take care!

mete : Hi! Pity you can’t eat mushroom any longer, they are so good ! Sure one need to be careful and don’t eat them in huge quantities, even the good ones can have some toxins and chitin and cellulose are quite difficult to digest . Yes, wolves are back to Rome , puppies have been seen in the natural reserve of Castel Guido, close to Fiumicino airport. Overall I’d say during the last two decades many wild animals are coming back. This is mainly due to the humans abandoning mountains, country sides, etc. Nature gets it back quite quickly !

J John A. Larsen : Thanks ! Glad you like the pics! Yes, mushrooms were good !

WILLIAM.M : Thanks! Happy you appreciated the photos! Glad to share !

SW-EDC ; L lambertiana : Thanks for stopping by ! Glad you liked the post !

 

[Lapedog]

Wow what scenery. And to think I am wasting away here in Toronto.

Time to move to Israel or something. The big city is driving me nuts.

 

[Herlock]

Hi!

Lapedog : Glad you liked it! I feel your pain. I have lived and worked for some years in Mainland China. Many times I felt like “imprisoned” and the overall lack of greenery, natural sceneries, pollution, lack of personal spaces, noise, traffic, etc. were really wearing me down eventually . To get out to “open” spaces it was at least two/three hours trip and surroundings were pretty ugly, at least to my own personal taste. The nicer ones were normally crowded like a shopping mall on Saturdays afternoons . No expat package can make this worth, I can tell you. In the long run, these megalopolises kill me also. I have never been to Canada but it doesn’t look to me Toronto is really such a bad city, in this respect. I have an image of Canada as a very green and even still “wild” country, with a great wilderness and majestic natural landscapes . Shouldn’t be super difficult to be out in real nature in a reasonably amount of time and kilometres. Take care!

 

[Pàdruig]

I always enjoy seeing your pictures, Herlock . You are rather fortunate to live near such gorgeous scenery. I LOVE the pictures of your mushrooms, I am an avid mushroom hunter myself and am always on the lookout when I venture out into the woods. These past few weeks I have been deer and elk hunting and by proxy, I usually end up with a nice stash of mushrooms. I hope you don't mind me posting a couple of pictures of some of my recent finds in your thread, feel free to have me remove them if needed.

 

[mete]

Herlock, you should have a 'mushroom knife ' with blade on one end and a small brush on the other ! Then you could do a test report of the knife , adding it to your collection !

 

[Herlock]

Hi!

Pàdruig : Thanks for appreciation ! Yes, I know I’m a lucky man to have this playground just around the corner! Deer and moose stew get together fantastically with sautéed mushrooms ! We don’t have moose but deer, roe deer and wild boar are typical dishes here in the mountains. Thanks for sharing your catches ! I think I have recognized the chanterelles, the Laetiporus sulphureum (?) but, what’s the mushroom in your last pic, the... “hairy” one ? Never seen it around here! Very interesting.

mete : Hi! Yes, I remember we had a couple of these (probably Opinels) when I was a kid, laying around in the kitchen drawers of our summer house back then . They’re nice “gadgets” but I prefer a “real” knife when hiking . I can surely do some rough preliminary cleaning of the mushrooms (brushing excluded) but also it can be put to work for some more “serious” tasks, if the need should arise. These mushrooms knives are for sure nice knives (specially those from Maserin, FOX or Viper ), but I can’t help comparing them to those high quality bottle openers wich happens to have also some useful blades .

 

[Mikel_24]

While I am no expert AT ALL gathering mushroms, the problem I see is that you are supposed to cut the stem at ground level, which sometimes means you will be pretty much digging with your knife. I truly don't care about scratches, but you will surely leave some scars on you blades!

I would carry both just because...

 

[Herlock]

Hi M Mikel_24 ! This is a good point but maybe we have different “picking techniques” ? I normally do like this and this is also what they are teaching in the trainings and recommending on the leaflets you get here when you pay for the picking permit : “Grab the mushroom from the stem and pull it out with a slight rotation, paying attention not to remove a too large clod of soil and not to alter, as much as possible, the surrounding soil; clean the stem base well with a sharp knife and carefully place the mushrooms in the basket. Digging or racking around it’s forbidden: we could find another mushroom but we would irretrievably destroy the mycelium, the mushroom plant”; to explain this last concept, they even make a rather extreme example : “it's like if to pick up an apple, one throw down the whole tree”.

 

[mete]

It's very hard on my poor brain to use big words at this hour of the morning but Symbiosis is one that fits here.
It's like that other underground 'mushroom' which needs to be next to an oak tree. [help me out Herlock you use dogs or pigs to find them ]
Lichens also are very delicate , they use them to study pollution. One lichen I miss is my 'soldier lichen' grey with a bright red top referring to the British 'redcoats ' that were here .

 

[Low_rez]

BEAUTIFUL. Thanks for the pics of your adventure and your mushrooms!

 

[Low_rez]

I always enjoy seeing your pictures, Herlock . You are rather fortunate to live near such gorgeous scenery. I LOVE the pictures of your mushrooms, I am an avid mushroom hunter myself and am always on the lookout when I venture out into the woods. These past few weeks I have been deer and elk hunting and by proxy, I usually end up with a nice stash of mushrooms. I hope you don't mind me posting a couple of pictures of some of my recent finds in your thread, feel free to have me remove them if needed.

Are all of these edible? I wish I knew more about mushrooms in the wild. I love them but am afraid I would poison myself.

 

[Herlock]

mete : Yes, those are the truffles, very popular here also, but not in this area. Those are more typical in the plains or hills of Tuscany and Piedmont Regions, not really up here in the mountains. To pick those, you are right, they employ dogs or pigs but it’s a lot of digging! Truffles are hypogeum mushrooms (subterranean), these instructions are for epigeous ones. Lichens are very nice to look at but we are not eating them !

Low_rez : Thanks ! My pleasure to share! The mushrooms I finally picked are all edibles; among the ones I pictured the Amanita muscaria is for sure poisonous. Beautiful to look at but better not to eat this. I pick up mushrooms since my early childhood so I can say I now have a decent knowledge . Anyway, I only pick the few species I am very sure about. Several incidents are reported every year here of people who got poisoned by mushrooms.

As a curiosity, around here, specially during the summertime, many villages municipalities organize “trainings” for new wannabe mushroom pickers . It’s normally a couple of days training, with theory and practice. They teach basic mushrooms biology, different species, rules for picking, etc. and even give some culinary tips. It’s a nice recreational activity to take part in e.g. during vacation, for very reasonable fees and these normally ends up with great common dinners . Also a resident mycologist is often available in the most touristic mountain villages here, offering for free consultation and identification of the “catches” .