Mushrooms

We’ve got mushrooms in our lawn, nine of them! Well that’s hardly Earth-shattering news, but it’s one of life’s little victories for me! I happen to be partial to field mushrooms, fried in butter or stewed in a little water with salt and butter then thickened with a little cornflour. I know they’re not to everyone’s taste, and if that’s you, I’m sorry, but usually I take every opportunity to dine on them. But I won’t be eating any of the nine! I’m leaving them to seed – or should I say, spore?

Fungi are incredibly diverse living organisms, from tinea between an athlete’s toes to the world’s largest living organism, a mycorrhizal fungi supporting the mighty redwood forests of North America. Mushrooms are the fruiting body of mycorrhiza fungi, those tiny, cotton-like filaments attached to the roots of all plants in a symbiotic relationship. The filaments spread out like little explorers to search for nutrients suitable for the host plant. The plants’ roots loyally follow. The filaments, mycelium, also help the tree by converting the nutrients for uptake by the hair roots. Douglas fir for instance will not thrive well without the ideal species of mycorrhiza. Don’t you think Mother Nature’s clever?

For years now, maybe forty of them, I’ve been collecting field mushrooms for the pot, and kept the skin I peeled from the top because with the skin, tiny bits of the gills come off. The gills are where the spores are manufactured. As well, from time to time a whole mushroom might have sciarid fly larvae (I don’t like protein with my mushies), so it would go with the bits of skin. I spread the waste material on the lawn in the hope that spores might germinate and one day we might have mushrooms. Well we have! The mycorrhiza, I’m certain has established!

I don’t eat the Birch Bolete mushrooms that sometimes emerge in great profusion under my silver birch trees. A German family often come along to collect them, and a restaurateur used to collect them, or I would take a bucket-full to her, but that’s when she had European chef. Sometimes Asians might jump the fence but they also take a brown toadstool growing there. They assure me that they know species and it’s edible, but my research tells me they are toxic! It freaks me out a bit, so I tell them it’s entirely their risk! 

My Mum and I were the only ones in our family who ate mushrooms. There are family stories that I could smell them in the paddock as we drove by, but when I think about it, it’s more likely to have been the smell was new-mown hay or even a haystack! Since I have mentioned my Mum… Mushrooms can be a feast, but can hardly be called a decadent feast, but we did do decadent! When there wasn’t anyone else around, she would grate an apple into a pudding plate, liberally sprinkle full cream milk powder over it, plus a little cinnamon, and then douse the lot with cream! I wouldn’t eat it now but as a kid, I sure lapped it up!

Back in the day, when I lived in a one-roomed hut, living pretty much off the land, I was out hunting for rabbits with my dog, Wally, when I came across a gulley that was white with mushrooms. In those days I had a little Commer Cob stationwagon, so I filled the back with mushrooms. On my way back to camp, I paid some visits. In exchange for mushrooms I was given tomatoes by a tomato grower’s wife; some eggs by a poultry farmer and a pound of sausages by the butcher! I kept a bowlful for myself and took the rest to the pub in exchange for two free house meals! A good morning’s work, in my book!

On my farm, I planted some oak trees, four varieties, with the intention of fungiciding the area, buying a black truffle, ripening it and spreading it around the trees. But an expert came to the nursery who later visited my trees and poured cold water on my idea! He told me some willow trees were too close so the truffles wouldn’t take, so with him being the expert, I bowed to his knowledge. I’d never do that again! Experts have their ways, set rules if you like. I’m left handed and daily I break right handed rules! So whenever anyone says something should be done a certain way, I like to question why. If they say something can’t be done, I experiment to see if it can. Experts follow the norm because they must. It’s up to mugs like you and me, poor, hard up, mortals who can’t afford experts, try different methods, trial new ideas and come up with new techniques!  

Anyway, our friendly expert convinced the nursery owners that growing oak and hazelnut (filbert) trees inoculated with Périgord Black Truffle could be a financial winner! We began trials and production on a small scale. The black truffle mycorrhiza is weak compared to other mycorrhiza abundant around the nursery. Not only in the nursery, anywhere in fact, fungal spores float in the air all the time! To inoculate truffle mycelium into tree roots, hygiene became a huge factor. Inoculation sounds scientific but all you do is wash the seedling roots, make a slurry in a blender with a ripe truffle, dip the plant roots in the goo and plant it. But the trick is, and only Mother Nature can do it, the spore has to germinate on the root hair tip as it forms. And that’s tricky. We were moderately successful, but the cost of production was more than customers were prepared to pay, which made it a fizzer! Actually more to the point, our quality control was too expensive because we had to sample each plant’s mycelium by having its DNA checked.

So, I’ve never tasted a truffle but I’m happy enough to go through life without doing so. Never mind, I’m expecting a bumper crop of mushrooms next season and will delight in consuming the culinary delicacy picked straight from our own lawn!