This year was a bumper year for ceps (also known by their Italian name porcini, and in French called cèpes). There are four species that are highly prized, and a few more, referred to as boletes (Fr. bolets) that provide tasty bulk.
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Ceps foraged in the Forest of Amboise.
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One of the surprises was how many Summer Ceps Boletus reticulatus (Fr. Cèpe d'été) there were in late October and early November. Normally they are a much earlier fruiting mushroom, and not the most abundant species. It was explained to me that the extremely dry conditions, followed eventually by moderate rain with still warm days and a few colder nights, provided conditions when everything fruited at once, all desperately trying to reproduce once the dry ended.
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The man on the left turned up at the annual fungi exhibition in Sainte Maure de Touraine with a boot full of Dark Ceps, including the very large one he is holding, foraged nearby.
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The Dark Cep Boletus aereus (Fr. Cèpe bronzé) also fruited in unusually large numbers. Whereas Edible Cep Boletus edulis and Bay Bolete Imleria badia (Fr. Bolet bai) seemed to be in normal to low abundance. Orange Oak Bolete Leccinum aurantiacum (Fr. Bolet orangé) was abundant and everywhere, just like in normal years.
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Summer Ceps foraged in late October in a forest near Séligny.
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Edible Cep and Orange Oak Bolete foraged in a local forest.
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Orange Oak Bolete in the Forest of La Guerche.
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Ceps from the Creuse at the market in La Roche Posay.
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Ceps from the Creuse at the market in La Roche Posay.
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3 comments:
A local friend here found so many he was giving them away to friends, we were lucky enough to get 2.5 kg of his collection.
Hope all is well up there in the Loire, cheers Diane.
Diane: Giving away mushrooms foraged for personal consumption is illegal, you know :-) It's to stop people operating on the black market, and perhaps more importantly, poisoning people, as happened earlier in the year to some poor young bloke whose mate couldn't identify a Death Cap when he saw one, or wasn't diligent enough about keeping one out of his basket.
Plus there is a 5 kg per person per day limit for personal consumption. So instead of giving mushrooms to his friends, he should have just stopped picking them and let other people have a bit of a go.
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