I originally wrote this feature about foraging for mushrooms with chef and expert Bill Jones of Deerholme Farm for The Globe and Mail many years ago, but he's still the go-to foraging guy on Vancouver Island. And when matsutake (a.k.a. pine mushrooms) turn up in Victoria supermarkets, I turn to his great books for advice.
By CINDA CHAVICH
DUNCAN, BC — Bill Jones kneels in a wet pasture and plucks a slender conical mushroom, identifying it as the magical psylocybe.
We are here with the well-known chef hunting for edible fungi — the famous yellow chanterelles and fat local pine mushrooms — and Jones has proffered a different type of mushroom every 10 minutes during our foray through the forest. But it is this blast from the past that captures everyone's interest, and a dozen heads lean in for a closer look.
"This is the magic mushroom, usually found where cattle graze," he says, pointing out a patch of the tiny tan caps among the dandelions and cow pies in an open field.
The leaf-strewn trails of Vancouver Island's temperate rain forest are a bonanza for the mushroom hunter, but you must know what's what. While there are 30 different kinds of edible mushrooms on the island, the majority of mushrooms Jones spots with his keen mushroom vision today are poisonous. The hallucinogenic psylocybe falls into the inedible category – but others are seriously deadly – so I'm happy to follow in the expert's footsteps.
Jones, who hosts mushroom foraging and cooking events at his Deerholme Farm, has literally written the book on the subject: The Deerholme Farm Mushroom Book.
He regularly cooks his creative forest-farm-to-table dinners in the cozy 1918 cottage on his acreage outside Duncan. From his open kitchen, he'll teach you all about seasonal B.C. ingredients, sharing recipes and tips on how to prepare them.
But the best part of Jones's regular food fests is eating, tucking into a locally inspired dinner that is as fine as any restaurant meal, such as Alsatian flatbread with porcinis, smoke-roasted chanterelle salad, or Dungeness crab cakes with Chinese braised wild mushrooms.
In spring, morels feature in Jones's eclectic cuisine — dishes such as prawn and morel soup with coconut milk and curry paste, or rabbit terrine studded with bacon and morels.
But in the fall, it's the mushroom motherlode and this year he is planning several dinners and cooking classes around local fungi, whether the Northern Spain Mushroom Dinner with Smoked octopus with mushrooms, olives, roasted peppers and garlic to start and Tortilla with chanterelles and caramelized tomato sauce; or a French Alps Mushroom Dinner featuring Potato and mushroom rosti and French onion soup with porcini and duck.
But today, we veer off into the tangled forest to escape a light drizzle, the canopy dense and the fallen logs thick with moss. It's perfect mushroom habitat. Beneath one towering pine, Jones brushes aside the leaf litter to reveal a golden chanterelle as big as my fist. He reaches down to cut the deeply grooved, vase-shaped fungus near the ground using a small knife, careful not to disturb the fine mycelium beneath the soil that will send up more of these delicious treasures.
We plunk it into our paper bag and pick our way deeper into the shady woods, the beams of late-afternoon sunlight slicing nearly horizontally through the gloom. We trudge along the narrow deer trails for several hours, heads bowed, eyes fixed on the jumble of late-season detritus at our feet. We find - or rather Jones spots – more yellow chanterelles, and the funnel-shaped Yellow Foot or winter chanterelle, before we return to the cottage for the cooking, and eating, portion of our fungal study.
The open-kitchen counter is piled with fresh specimens still crusted with spruce needles and humus, and the moist, musty scent of the forest hangs in the air. We examine the caps, gills and stems, the spongy pores on the underside of the boletus (a.k.a. porcini or cepe) and the toothy spines of hedgehog mushrooms, then slice open a pine mushroom to search the striated interior for the small worms that like to burrow inside.
COOKING THE HAUL
After a show-and-tell primer, Mr. Jones slices, sautés and delivers tastes of various specimens to the gathered students. Some are avid "mushroomers," arriving with dog-eared field guides and special tools like mushroom magnifiers and measuring devices. Many are simply curious cooks and outdoor types, keen to know more about the complex world of mycology.
The hike has honed our appetites, and we sip wine from local island winemakers while comparing the flavour and textures of several unique specimens.
The large pine mushroom, or matsutake, is aromatic, spicy and sweet, with firm, dense flesh, prized in Japan and Korea and commanding high prices. The fiery red lobster mushroom is reminiscent of its namesake in both colour and flavour thanks to a symbiotic accident between a mushroom and a parasite. The golden chanterelles offer a whiff of apricot and a peppery finish. The shaggy hedgehog (or yellow tooth) turns up with carrots and honey mushrooms in our soup, and the ruffled cauliflower mushroom is like chewy wide noodles on the plate.
There's no doubt that this is one of the best entrees into the burgeoning Cowichan Valley food community – a chance to taste the finest local food in the land, along with some fascinating company. It's a magical little place – and it's not just the mushrooms.
This feature originally appeared in The Globe and Mail newspaper
LEARN MORE IN 2024
Bill Jones offers mushroom walks, cooking classes, workshops and wild food experiences in the Cowichan Valley, plus local food Forest+Farm to Table dinners and Foraging Weekends, throughout the year. The next mushroom foraging events/weekends go Sept 28, October 5/6, 12, 26/27, Nov. 2, and 9/10.
For more about Deerholme Farm cooking classes and tours, go to https://www.deerholme.com/
A MENU FOR PINE MUSHROOM SEASON
Bill Jones offers regular Forest+Farm to Table dinners at his Deerholme Farm in the Cowichan Valley. Here's what's coming up to celebrate pine mushroom season:
Japanese Kaiseki Pine Mushroom Dinner
November 16th, 2024
($125/person)
Apps:
Soy marinated egg with miso and pine mushroom
Braised matsutake with sake, sesame and plum
Plates:
Miso soup with smoked mussels, pine mushrooms and seaweed
Salad of braised vegetables and pine mushroom with bean thread noodles and citrus
Maple, soy and miso sablefish served over pine mushroom. squash and wasabi risotto
Japanese cheesecake with blackberry, candied ginger and honey sauce
RECIPE:
COOKING MATSUTAKE:
The wild pine mushrooms (matsutake) at the local market were nearly $50/kg this week, but I found a pound on the "last chance" shelf for 10 bucks and brought them home.
Pine mushrooms arrive covered with pine needles and other detritus from the forest floor and are not easy to clean. I found it necessary to peel these specimens but they were just as lovely and while inside as the day they were picked. Matsutake are known for their aromatics — sweet earthy aromas with a hint of cinnamon — and they're often simply sliced and added to a bowl of Japanese ramen.
But I wanted to try something new with my matsutake mushrooms. So here's what we had:
SWEET CORN CHOWDER WITH PINE MUSHROOMS AND SMOKED SALMON
This is a recipe from Bill Jones The Deerholme Farm Mushroom Book. His original recipe calls for chanterelles but the pine mushrooms were delicate and delicious. What could be better for a seasonal supper when corn is still available in the market and fall mushroom season is upon us!
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
2 cups fresh pine or chanterelle mushrooms, roughly chopped, plus 1 cup for garnish
1 or 2 cloves minced garlic
4 cups chicken stock
4-5 ears fresh corn
1 large baking potato, peeled and diced
1 or 2 large carrots, peeled and diced
1/2 cup diced smoked salmon
1-2 Tbsp fresh rosemary, minced
salt and pepper to taste
4-6 tsp finely grated black truffles (optional)
Hold the corn cob of corn upright in a large bowl, and with a sharp knife, cut the kernels away from the cobs. Save the cobs. Peel and dice the onion and roughly chop the mushrooms.
Heat the oil and butter gently in a large pot and add the onions. Sauté for a minute or two, then add 2 cups of the mushrooms and the garlic. Cook for a few minutes until the mushrooms have softened but don’t let them brown. Add the chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Toss in the empty corn cobs for extra flavour.
Add half the corn kernels. Bring to a gentle boil, then simmer for 20 minutes. Remove the corn cobs and discard.
Cool soup slightly, then puree the soup in a blender or food processor until very smooth. Return to the pot (you can also use a hand blender but you can't get the soup quite as smooth).
Add the diced potato and carrot, the remaining corn kernels, and 1 Tbsp. fresh minced rosemary and cook until the vegetables are just tender. Very gently stir in the smoked salmon chunks.
Meanwhile, sauté the remaining 1 cup mushrooms in a little butter until browned and a little crispy.
Serve in soup bowls and garnish with the sautéed mushrooms, more fresh rosemary and grated truffles, if using.
©Cinda Chavich
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