Foraging for wild mushrooms is madly popular in France. You are allowed to gather 5 kg per person per day, for personal use and if you have the landowner's permission. Most people who gather this sort of quantity these days have a dehydrator and process most of their mushrooms this way. Note that the law forbids you from giving any of your mushrooms away (in case you inadvertently poison a friend), and you are certainly not allowed to sell any that are excess to requirements directly, although you may, in some circumstances pass them on to a licenced forager. I don't gather anywhere near this quantity, but I like to have a couple of foraging outings in a season, to keep my eye in. I don't gather more than a kilo over a season. I don't own a dehydrator and cook my mushroom bounty fresh as an occasional treat.
Hedgehog mushrooms (Fr. Pieds de moutons) and a few Ashen Chanterelles (Fr. Chanterelles cendrées), foraged in the Foret de Preuilly.
There are relatively few mushrooms in the forest which are both edible, and worth eating. Make sure you can accurately identify them, because it's fairly easy to make yourself sick, even if you manage to avoid killing yourself. To be able to safely identify the edibles you need to be able to confidently identify their toxic lookalikes too. Make sure your basket is not full of a mixture of crumbling mushroom species. That's a common way of accidentally poisoning yourself, when there is a small piece of something highly toxic mixed in with your edibles.
Hedgehog mushrooms prepared for cooking.
These instructions are good for ceps (porcini), chanterelles, girolles, black trumpets, hedgehog mushrooms, oysters and wood blewits.
The liquid produced in the first cooking, ready to be drained off.
- Only choose mushrooms in perfect condition. Any mushroom may become toxic with age, so don't eat any that are past their best. Prepare and cook wild mushrooms within hours of foraging, and no longer than 24 hours after picking.
- Cut off the dirty stem ends and discard.
- Brush the tops and check for invertebrates and dirt underneath, brush delicately if necessary. Be thorough because gritty mushrooms aren't nice.
- For ceps and hedgehogs gently rub off the sponge (ceps) or needles (hedgehogs).
- Slice or chop the mushrooms as desired.
- Melt a knob of butter in a frying pan and add the mushrooms.
- Cook on medium high heat for 2 minutes, stirring and turning occasionally. The mushrooms will release a lot of liquid.
- Carefully pour off the liquid.
- Add some more butter to the mushrooms and continue to cook, stirring and turning, for a further 5 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
Giving the mushrooms their second cooking after draining the liquid.
Don't feed wild mushrooms to children under seven years old, and don't eat them yourself more than once a week. This is to avoid over exposure to either natural toxins or toxins the mushrooms may sequester or accumulate.
Wild mushrooms served with white fish and potatoes.
