by Greg Marley
Using the same pan (don’t clean it out), add oil if needed and sauté the onions and garlic, if you choose, over medium heat. Once the onions are translucent, add the chanterelles and sauté until dry.
Return the chicken to the pan and add the stock, and allow the dish to simmer a minute before adding the cream.
Balance the flavors with salt and pepper and serve immediately over cooked and drained fettuccini with cheese as a garnish.
ECONOMIC VALUE
As mentioned earlier, chanterelles are valued as food throughout the world. In our global marketplace, wild mushrooms make a significant contribution to the commodity market. The demand for the highly desired, non-cultivatable edibles such as porcini, chanterelles, truffles, and morels in major cities around Europe, Asia, and the United States has created a market estimated at more than $12 billion per year for fresh and dried wild mushrooms. Into this vacuum have come the traders to fill the demand. This has resulted in the movement of wild mushrooms from rural communities into the cities, from impoverished third world countries into the developed countries of Europe, North America, and Asia, and from the Southern Hemisphere into the North. In some rural communities of Africa, Asia, and South America, the income generated from the collection and sale of wild mushrooms contributes a significant percentage of the total annual income for many families. The major importers of chanterelles are Germany and France, with other European countries also interested in the tasty golden mushroom. The largest suppliers of mushrooms to the European market are the Eastern and Baltic countries that comprise the former USSR, including Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Russia, and Ukraine. In 1998, these regions accounted for more than 80 percent of the total European Union imports of chanterelles, some 28 million pounds of fresh mushrooms. The newest members of the export trade include some African countries such as Tanzania and Zimbabwe. There has been a suggestion that Pakistani villagers could bring in more income by taking advantage of the plentiful chanterelle crop in the mountain forests to develop an export trade to supplement the current trade in dried morels from the region.7 This could have special significance at a time when there is increased pressure on available farm land.
In the United States and Canada, trade in chanterelles has become a significant part of what is now termed “non-timber resources” derived from our forests and is recognized as a major source of revenue for people in areas affected by the decline in the timber industry. As a result of environmental concerns, timber harvesting on public lands in some regions has been reduced, and many communities supported primarily by the timber industry have had to look for other sources of income. In these areas, some residents can make a significant portion of their income during the mushroom season. The heavily forested regions of the northwest United States, British Columbia, and Alaska constitute the epicenter of commercial mushrooming activity in North America due to the millions of acres of forest and a climate strongly conducive to mushroom growth.8 It is estimated that in 1992, 515 metric tons of chanterelles were harvested from the forests of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. The largest share of these went to the markets of Europe and Asia but 30 percent were used within the United States.9 Wholesale buyers paid an average of $3.00 per pound to pickers, totaling 3.5 million dollars in income for mushroom hunters almost solely from chanterelles.
When you add up their cosmopolitan distribution, universal ease of recognition, excellent taste, and economic value, it is no surprise that chanterelles consistently make the high end of a list of best edible mushrooms. The novice mycophagist must sample chanterelles in order to establish a benchmark for all other mushrooms to follow.
5
BOLETUS EDULIS
Ancient tradition has it that should you ever chance upon a lone Cep,
you should ask it quietly, “Where is your brother?”
since they invariably grow in pairs.
CROATIAN TRADITIONAL SAYING
Any list of the world’s most prized and desired edible wild mushrooms would have Boletus edulis at the top along with morels, chanterelles, and truffles. (I include truffles as a nod to their legendary mystique, but the other three are more widely sought, collected, and eaten in most of the world by many different cultures and peoples.) Like the chanterelle, Boletus edulis has many different common names. In the United States, it is called the king bolete, but even in America it is more often referred to by the Italian porcini (little pig), a reference to the characteristic appearance of the young mushroom with a swollen fat stem and smaller cap nestled to the ground (see #9 and #10 in the color insert). For simplicity’s sake, I will refer to it here as porcini.
The porcini is a member of the boletes, fleshy basidiomycete mushrooms that have a classic rounded cap on a central stalk and spores that mature in a dense collection of sponge-like tubes (or pores) on the underside of the cap where gills would be in many other mushrooms. In North American Boletes, Alan Bessette, Bill Roody, and Arlene Bessette cover eighteen genera and hundreds of species,1 though they don’t even come close to the 600 species addressed in detail by Ernst Both in his 1993 compendium on the group.2 Though any beginning mushroomer can tell a bolete from a gilled mushroom, people have spent their lives learning all the mushrooms in this group. B. edulis was the first described species and remains the type species of the genus Boletus. This stout-stemmed, solid soldier is certainly the best-known and most recognizable member of the boletes and, for many mushroom enthusiasts, the species is synonymous with the whole group. The specific epithet edulis translates as yummy.
To say that porcini is a prized edible is a bit like saying that Mozart is a really good composer; it gives you the basic information, but it belittles the reverence and encompassing passion that both inspire in their devotees. Nowhere is the passion for porcini more concentrated than in the mycophilic countries of Europe. When the summer and fall rains come and people across the region take to the forests, they always hope that a portion of the basket will be filled with porcini. In the Slavic countries, people pickle and brine many species of Russula, Lactarius, and other boletes, but the porcini often are reserved for eating fresh, at least until the first lustful appetite is sated. They are roasted with meats, fried with onions and garlic, and even eaten raw, sliced thinly as a main ingredient of a mushroom salad. Porcini is equally valued as a dried mushroom, and any surplus is quickly processed for drying to bring its rich mushroom flavor into dishes throughout the year. Many people value the flavor-boosting benefits of the dried mushroom over the fresh and, for them, all of the collection basket heads into the dehydrator. Unless you collect your own porcini in the United States, you will need to rely on dried mushrooms. Fresh porcini have a short shelf life and are rarely available for retail sale in this country, while the dried ones, at a very rich price, are available in most fine food stores. If your dried porcini are not very expensive, it is probably because there are other dried boletes making up the bulk of the product. This is not terrible, since many species of boletes have fine flavor dried, but they may lack the depth of flavor of true porcini.
TAXONOMY
I often refer to the porcini mushrooms as a complex, which is a way of acknowledging that there exists, in a given region or a given genus, a cluster of closely related species that are very difficult to distinguish without specialized knowledge or equipment or both. In most regions where it grows, porcini is represented by a complex of several look-alike boletes that grow in similar habitats and fruit in overlapping periods during the season. Most are edible and it would take someone with a more refined palate than mine to distinguish them on the basis of taste or texture. Mycophiles around the world, in Poland, Italy, and France to name a few examples, argue vehemently that the porcini look-alikes found in their region are superior to others. In the northeast United States, B. chippewaensis, B. clavipes, B. variipes, B. pinophilus, and B. nobilis are relatively common species that might be included in the porcini complex. There are some taxonomists who maintain that the only true B. edulis in Nor
th America are associated with imported seedlings of Norway spruce. If you are collecting for the sauté pan, there is no reason to beat your head against the fine-tuning of species here. All of the above-named species are edible. It can be a fun pursuit of knowledge, but not when the olive oil is heating in the pan.
A Sample of Common Names for
Boletus edulis from Around the World
Boletus, from Latin boletus;
derived from Greek bolos for clod or lump
Porcini (little pig) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Italy
Cep (trunk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .France
Penny bun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . England
King bolete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .United States
Steinpilz (stone mushroom) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Germany
Borovik (forest mushroom) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Russia
Beliy grib (white mushroom) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Russia
Herrenpilz (gentlemen's mushroom) . . . . . . . . . .Austria
Hongo, boleto blanco (white bolete) . . . . . . . . . . . Mexico
The bolete family contains many edible species belonging to more than a dozen genera and quite a number are considered excellent edibles. Because of the number of related species and the challenge of accurate identification, I strongly recommend that beginners take a slow, cautious approach to grazing their way through the group. Even the best general field guides cover only a small percent of the species. Working primarily on my own with a few field guides in the early years of mushrooming, I enjoyed collecting and eating a few of the boletes in the genera Suillus and Leccinum. I cannot say they remain my favorite edibles, but they were a start. It took several more years and consultation with other mushroomers before I felt confident with the genus Boletus.
DESCRIPTION
Porcini are medium to large mushrooms that can be found growing in the forest, at the edge of the woods, or under mature trees in landscaped areas. The caps range from 2 to 12 inches, and begin as rounded, but then move into a hamburger bun shape as they age (#9). A mature porcini cap becomes flattened to almost dish shaped. Cap color ranges from pale tan to dark brown with all variations in between. The surface is smooth to somewhat wrinkled and can become viscid when wet. The pore surface is white in a young mushroom and becomes yellowish and finally pale greenish brown in age as the olive brown spores mature and are released. The individual pores are round and small, 1–2 per millimeter, and never bruise blue. The stem of the porcini is often wider in the base and narrowing above, especially in a young mushroom (#10). The color is off-white to pale brown and always has some reticulate, or net-veining. The reticulations can cover the entire stem or be limited to the upper third. The flesh of the mushroom is whitish and never bruises blue.
CAVEATS
There is a myth that all boletes are edible. For me, beyond the old saying that all mushrooms are edible at least once, I reject any of generalities about edibility. There are no boletes that are considered deadly poisonous yet a number have sickened people over time. (My only sickening involved eating a lilac brown bolete, Tylopilus eximius.) In their thirty-year review of reported mushroom poisonings made to the North American Mycological Association (NAMA), Michael Beug and his colleagues listed twenty-two different boletes reported to have caused gastrointestinal distress in 118 people across the United States.3 They acknowledge that the NAMA registry is not always notified about mild mushroom poisonings, so the actual number of sickenings is assuredly much higher. Know the species of mushroom you are considering eating and follow my guidelines for a new mycophagist about trying a new species. Within the genus Boletus, it is generally best to avoid any of the reddish-pored species that stain blue when bruised, as several of these are known to cause gastrointestinal distress. Again, if you are not 100 percent confident in your identification, don’t reach for the sauté pan.
In the Northeast, one porcini look-alike has been implicated in several sickenings. It is Boletus huronensis, and though some guides call it edible, there have been a few cases of people becoming sickened following a meal of this mushroom. It can be differentiated from porcini by the pore surface that stains slowly blue upon bruising, the yellowish stem color, often with traces of red, and the lack of the fine net-like veining on the stalk. Don’t eat these mushrooms.
ECOLOGY, HABITAT, AND OCCURRENCE
Porcini and almost all other boletes live in mycorrhizal relationships with forest trees and shrubs and, consequently, are an essential part of a healthy forest ecosystem. Because of their mycorrhizal lifestyle, it is unlikely they will be available as cultivated mushrooms anytime soon. Boletus edulis and the look-alike species of the complex form root relationships with a fairly wide variety of trees including species of spruce, pine, hemlock, and a number of hardwoods—most notably oaks. The generalist nature of their associations is quite different from some of the other boletes, especially those members of the genus Suillus that associate with only one genus of trees or even a single species. For a mycophage, mushrooms that are tree symbionts have both advantages and disadvantages. Mycorrhizal species often form long-lasting partnerships with the host; their underground mycelium are perennial. If you find a tree with porcini fruiting beneath it, place a pin in your mushroom map, and return to the tree in future mushroom seasons to collect again. Given this long-term monogamous relationship, the mycelium can wait longer between fruitings, secure in the awareness that it will not run out of food unless the host tree dies or is removed. For many mycorrhizal species, porcini included, this results in a feast-or-famine cycle of fruiting. There are many years in which I find a few members of the edulis complex to collect and eat but not enough to dry. Then will come the year in which I seem to trip over a profusion of caps in almost every stretch of forest I enter. I count on the feast years to provide me with a dried porcini supply to last through the lean years.
Because members of the B. edulis complex occur with a number of different tree species in a variety of forest types, they appear to pop up without rhyme or reason, especially to the novice eye. When you recall the long-term nature of the tree partnership, it should prompt you to look for patterns in what trees the mushrooms are associated with and when they are fruiting. Though not nearly as predicable in their pattern as chanterelles, in the right season with abundant rain, a few of your sites will surely produce mushrooms reliably. The fruiting season for porcini is extensive. I generally can count on a few appearing in early to mid-summer, along with chanterelles, and then in response to significantly wet periods throughout the growing season and into late fall. The heaviest flushes tend to come in September and early October and these cool weather crops are generally less prone to attack by larvae. In Maine I find the best crops associated with red oak or spruce, and the single most productive site I know is a planted spruce forest. This is one mushroom you do not want to let sit around maturing while you decide the perfect moment to harvest. The bugs and slugs are often ahead of you and at work!
EDIBILITY
When you are fortunate enough to bring home a basket of porcini, the first step is to look over your treasure with an eye to best use. If you didn’t do this in the field, cut off the base of each mushroom, remove any bits of soil, and examine the mushrooms for signs of wormholes. Mushroom maggots are the larvae of flies that feed on mushrooms and they tend to start at the base and eat their way up the stem and into the cap. In the early stage, it is often easy to trim off the damaged portion. Some people do not mind minimal invasion. Separate the young mushrooms from the more mature ones. A young B. edulis has a pore surface that is still white or pale yellow and remains firm to the touch. As the mushroom matures, the pores change from white to yellowish to green, and become increasingly soft and squishy. Mature tubes should be removed, a task accomplished with a sharp knife or dexterous hands. I generally cook young, firm porcini fresh and dry ol
der ones, though large firm caps do well roasted over a fire or in a hot oven.
Fresh porcini fare well sliced somewhat thickly and sautéed in good olive oil with a bit of garlic or your favorite form of onion. That basic start can become a simple dish by itself, lightly seasoned or part of a more complex sauce with additions. Roasted with garlic-infused olive oil, they are a great complement to meats or a satisfying addition to risottos or pasta.
PORCINI AND GARDEN TOMATO SAUCE
In the Northeast, porcini are often most abundant at onion harvesting time when I have more tomatoes than I can use fresh. I sauté liberal amounts of onions with sliced mushrooms, add chopped tomatoes, and appropriate herbs and spices. The resulting sauce is used freshly made or frozen for a wonderful winter treat.
As I mentioned earlier, dried porcini take on an entirely different dimension of flavor because drying concentrates and deepens the mushroom’s essence. Clean and slice the mushrooms and place them in a dehydrator or on screens in a warm dry room such as an attic, or string them up in a warm room. Avoid using an oven for drying since they usually become too hot and the flavor is altered for the worse. Store your dried porcinis in glass jars or thick, well-sealed freezer bags; they will last for several years. Whenever I have the opportunity, I dry as large a supply of boletes as I can, knowing that their flavor will be great and never knowing when the next big porcini year will come. When you’re ready to use them, place the mushrooms in a bowl and cover them with warm water to rehydrate. Save the water! It makes a wonderful and flavorful stock. Some knowledgeable chefs simmer the dried mushrooms with water to create extracts to enrich the flavor of soups and sauces. Jack Czarnecki, the proprietor of a famous, but now closed restaurant named Joe’s in Reading, Pennsylvania, and the author of the seminal mushroom cookbook, Joe’s Book of Mushroom Cookery, has mouth-watering details about the preparation and use of mushroom extracts.4 Rehydrated mushrooms are renowned for flavor, but their texture leaves much to be desired. Chop them finely or the leathery texture will be too obvious. They add a dimension of rich flavor to many dishes. A dried porcini risotto is a wonderful repast on a cold winter night.