I recently reviewed my posts to check the time of year these guys had appear in my back yard in the past, and it turns out they tend to make an appearance once in July, then again in September. Well. It’s September, and here they are. The big cap in the photo weighs a half-pound. The entirety weighed in at just over half a kilo. Not wormy, not compromised by heat [it’s been a marked wet and cool year here], and not overly mature – these were fine specimens.
They were well appreciated aside confit’d pork neck. I just wish more people knew about them and had access to them. Such a treasure of a mushroom in my world.
***Don’t die eating wild mushrooms that you haven’t ID’d and blame it on me. Wild mushrooms can be vile-nasty-toxic, and this is my disclaimer that it’s not my fault if you mess up and get disastrously ill based on the information above. I’m just sayin’.
2 Comments on “Shaggy Parasols – September 2010”
1/2 a pound? OMG! These are something that I MUST forage for myself. When Thea showed me the Alberta Porchini (that’s what I call it – but our official Alberta mushroom from the Porchini family) I was IN. That was last summer at the Greens Eggs and Ham picnic. She then made a fritatta out of them with duck eggs. They had a beautiful texture, but were so delicately flavoured (not anything like the Porchini) that I would call them flavourless. Jack’s Grill also highlighted them at this year’s Slow Food Edmonton Indulgence 2010. There was no flavour then, either. So, I was not interested in foraging for a mushroom that is local, and flavourless. Is that bad? Maybe. I was still THRILLED about the knowledge, and the find, and the tasting experience. But, these LOOK flavourful… well, so did the Alberta Porchini with their beautiful orange caps. How do these taste?
:O
V alerie
Valerie – I assure you, Shaggy Parasols are a rich version of approachable mushroom flavor. You wouldn’t be disappointed.