Your top 5 edibles

[foragingmouse]

Just wondering what peoples top five edible shrooms are in no order as I swap my no 1 like my pants :-) monthly he he 


Mine are amythist deceivers , glistening ink cap , hedgehogs , blushers ( rather than fly agaric as I like the nutty taste ) and velvet shanks 

I would put saffron milkcaps in but they need to be salted to get there so I kept it to raw flavour , 

And to answer ceps are in my top 10 but only just :-) 

[eatlikekings]

1. Chanterelles
2. Chanterelles
3. Terracotta Hedgehogs
4. Regular Hedgehogs
5. Everything else

Were I to get a choice my last meal would feature, as a course, chanterelles on sourdough toast with poached eggs.

[foragingmouse]

You like chants then lol , my last meal is willy wonkas everlasting gobstopper :-)

[cab]

Tough question!

1. St. Georges mushrooms (Calocybe gambosa). Very tasty, and they combine superbly well with the other flavours that are around at the time (hens are laying like crazy in spring, and with wild garlic or other wild alliums alongside St. Georges and good fresh eggs you've got the archetypal flavour of spring, right there). It comes along at just the right time of year.

2. The Prince (Agaricus augustus). Its not the most prolific, or most common, but it is by FAR the best flavour of the summer/autumn shrooms. Strong almond overtones on top of a rich mushroomy background, and unlike some of the other almondy mushrooms it retains its flavour through cooking - even adding one good Prince to a pan full of other Agaricus can lift the entire dish.

3. Field blewits (Lepista saeva). Beautiful to look at and in some areas as common as muck, but it takes us through from autumn to the dark nights of winter with a rich, distinctive flavour. Rarely gets too badly infested with beasties, and like the St. Georges mushroom its a great accompaniment for other flavours of its season. Try stewing pigeons with white wine, juniper berries and blewits (field or wood blewits, for that matter). Or slow cook some belly pork with blewits, sage and thyme. Hauntingly good flavour.

4. Giant puffball (Langermannia gigantea). A much misunderstood fungus - it thrives in a wider range of habitats than people give it credit for, and the flavour can vary in intensity depending on when and where it is picked. But however you look at it, however you use it, its the single most exciting wild food to find. Obviously you can slice it and fry coated in egg with bacon fat, but a creative forager can find many uses. Hollowed out and stuffed with its own innards and spicy meaty stuffing, used in layers like lasagne in a rabbit stew, puff-burgers, take your pick.

5. Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus). Not the best flavour, nor the best texture, but simply the most useful thing to have in. It adds body, it adds structure, its got a meaty, fleshy texture and a flavour to match. Get your head round how to cook it, how to marinade it, and you can stew it, fry it, chop it and add it to pasta sauces, barbecue it... Its also hugely abundant in some places, so you can get enough to really experiment with. I can think of dozens of species that have more or better flavour, but I can't think of any fungus thats as bright and cheerful to see.

[edenwildfood]

I think mine would be Ceps, wood blewits, honey fungus, amethyst deceivers, st georges. But i havent eaten that many wild species so far yet.