Edible fungi

When it comes to harvesting wild fungi for the table there are several reasons to be glad that you live in Scotland. The fact that our little country is generally divided into three distinct topographical divisions, namely the Highlands, the Central Lowlands and the Southern Uplands provides us with three broadly different habitat bases within which hundreds of micro-niches provide us with an extraordinarily rich fungal flora, which of course includes the edibles. In much of the central valley, including Ayrshire, Tayside, Fife, the Lothians and parts of the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway we see most of the species typical to England and much of Continental Europe, while north of the Highland Boundary Fault we find a flora very similar to that of Scandinavia and the Taiga of western Russia with many species which are either extremely rare or totally absent elsewhere in the British Isles! Our upland grasslands, both north and south of the central valley are largely "unimproved" by fertilizers with

The total forest coverage in Scotland is currently around 17% of the land area. While this is a pale shadow of the former glory of the great ancient Forest of Caledon of which only about 1% remains (thanks to the ravages of our ancestors) it is still advantageous compared to the rest of the UK where the average is only 6% coverage, with poor old England having only 5%. There is some good news, however, as worthy heroes like the "Trees for Life" organisation are committed to restoring great swathes of habitat to their former glory through natural regeneration programmes, and as long as their efforts continue with our support good times lie ahead for future generations of Scots, and many of us alive today will perceive the resultant enhancements in distribution and diversity of our woodland fungi within our own lifetimes. As it stands, most of Scotland's forests are monospecific plantations, primarily of conifers. Anyone who frequents these will have noted that they are dark, silent, empty places, with few birds, fewer mammals, and little variety among the green plants and insects. The same tends to be true of their e

Chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius):

The world-famous chanterelle is an ingredient appreciated by every top chef. Its apricot aroma and subtle savoury flavour make it ideal for inclusion in any dish featuring meat, including venison and other game, whether roasted, fried or casseroled. It makes a sensational omelette ingredient especially when partnered by bacon and onions or shallots. Chanterelles love acid soils and plenty of rain, which is why they are so abundant throughout much of Scotland. In the Highlands they are mostly found with pine or birch trees while in the Central Lowlands and Southern Uplands their favoured symbiont is beech, although they also occur locally throughout the country under spruce, fir, oak and alder. In the catering industry this mushroom is known as the "girolle", with the word "chanterelle" being reserved for its relatives Cantharellus aurora and Cantharellus tubaeformis. It can be dried or

The Miller (Clitopilus prunulus):

There are several mushrooms which are world-class but totally under-rated in all but a few of the mushroom books around today. In this category we have the blusher, the aniseed funnel, the clustered domecap and the miller. In the hands of a good chef the miller will display a sweet richness that will hold its own with the more celebrated ceps, chanterelles and hedgehog mushrooms. When raw it has a meally smell which some may find offputting, but when cooked the flavour is said to resemble fried sweetbreads (personally I don't get this). It may be that the excellence of this mushroom is overshadowed in authors' minds by the potential danger of confusing it with a couple of nasty Clitocybe species which can hurt you badly - always check that the top of the cap has a chamois-leather feel and does not have either concentric markings or the "frosted" look of icing sugar; check that the gills are strongly decurrent, not slightly so; check that the spores are pink, not white (the mature specimen in the photo shows slight pinking of the gills); check that the smell is strongly meally, not of slightly meally saccharine, and above all make sure that they are randomly scattered on the ground rather than growing in a clearly-defined troop or circle. When you are confident of identification they are well worth a place in your culinary repertoire

Trooping Funnel (Clitocybe geotropa):

Primarily a denizen of open parkland, the trooping funnel is more common in southern Scotland although we have recorded it as far north as Culloden House, Inverness-shire, wherever suitable habitat obtains. No doubt it is much overlooked as it tends to fruit late in the season, from mid-October until well into November when many of us have put the hiking boots away for the year. It seems that Scotland is ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to eating this fungus, and here the catering trade usually refers to it as the "Rickstone funnel", or more commonly simply "Rickstones", the name under which it has been marketed since the mid-nineties. Although there are some dangerous members of the Clitocybe genus, you are most unlikely to come to grief when gathering the trooping funnel whose main characteristics include large size (to 20cm cap diameter), cream to pale flesh-pink colouration, and sweet perfumed aroma particularly from the strongly-decurrent gills; these combine to render the possibility of misidentification improbable. The pleasant aroma, together with its firm flesh make it popular with chefs creating a

The Gypsy (Cortinarius caperatus):

Extremely rare in the UK south of the Scottish Highlands, but very common in Scandinavia and elsewhere in upland continental Europe where it is widely eaten and enjoyed. Scottish gypsies were supplied to the UK catering industry until 2000, at which time the sole company engaged in this commerce voluntarily discontinued the line for reasons of conservation, not only for the fungus which remains locally abundant within its stronghold areas, but for the habitat where it occurs. Gypsy mushrooms are a very good bio-indicator of valuable ancient habitat containing a variety of endangered mosses, lichens and other fungi as well as rare plants, insects and vertebrates, so it was seen as undesirable to have groups of harvesters trampling down this ecosystem while disturbing the birds and mammals endemic to it. Attempts by that company to continue selling gypsies by tapping in to the abundant larders of Sweden and Finland have been thwarted by the abysmal shelf-life of the product - two days at most, and by its susceptibility to larval infestation, so it is no longer possible to buy gypsies in this country. If you should encounter it, by all means take a few home for the pot but please, PLEASE, let us know where you found it - not all of its locations are known and we cannot take steps to conserve its habitat if we don't know where that is! Most Scottish gypsies are confined to

NOTE: As you can see from the photographs below, more edible fungus summaries are on their way! Come and visit at a later date or have a go at writing some text yourself...

Horn of Plenty (Craterellus cornucopioides):

Sheathed Woodtuft (Kuehneromyces mutabilis):

Amethyst Deceiver (Laccaria amethystina):

Assorted groceries

their thin, boulder-strewn soils being unsuitable for arable practice. This leaves us with natural pastureland containing internationally important populations of waxcaps, pinkgills, puffballs and other fungi which thrive in this increasingly scarce habitat.

Cep growing in a spruce plantation

ndemic fungi, with perhaps only a handful of dominant species. Not a good place to collect the groceries, you might think. Wrong! Here's a wee secret... this is where the professional Jungle Rats do their best work!

Sometimes it transpires that the dominant species in a conifer plantation is the sickener, sometimes it may be spotted toughshank or the butter-cap, but then... sometimes it just may be the cep! (TBC)

(Photo: Moniack, Inverness-shire)

frozen successfully, despite the claim to the contrary found in many books, although in the case of freezing large specimens should not be used as they will be limp and soggy when thawed. Chanterelles can also be preserved in oil or by pickling.

(Photo: Pass of Ballater, Aberdeenshire)

- it is amazing how frequently people new to eating wild fungi (and unprejudiced by the opinions of authors who probably haven't even tried them) vote them into the top three varieties at kitchen tastings following a fungal foray. One other piece of good news: wherever you find millers you will almost certainly find ceps, usually on the same day but otherwise within a week or two. Mostly fruiting between August and November, millers can be found with a variety of trees throughout Scotland but usually in small numbers; if you want to hit serious paydirt then search the mossy floors of adequately-drained spruce and fir plantations: Noble Fir is particularly rewarding.

(Photo: Linn Park, Glasgow)

particular dish which may require something more robust than the chanterelle or horn of plenty. While not quite in the SPL of fungi, trooping funnels are nevertheless good enough to be in the promotion hunt from Division 1. The good news for city-dwellers is that this mushroom is often abundant in city parks in large quantities in areas where edible fungi are generally few. Just be sure to collect from locations where people do not exercise their dogs or you may get a flavour you didn't bargain for...

(Photo: Linn of Dee, Aberdeenshire)

the ancient Caledonian pine forests in the north, primarily around Glen Affric, as well as Abernethy and Rothiemurchus in Strathspey and the Forest of Mar in Royal Deeside. There are scattered localities elsewhere, and recently its "normal" range has been extended southwards by its discovery in an ancient pinewood remnant at Coire a Chuilc, near Tyndrum, Argyll and also, unusually, growing happily amongst oak at Laggan Wood, near Comrie, Perthshire. Recently moved by taxonomists from the genus Rozites into the Cortinarius super-complex, it is a pleasant mushroom to eat, but comparisons with the cep, in my opinion, greatly flatter the gypsy.