| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| dpack |
ceps awol ? not any moremy best ceps site is shroom free, there is no sign of anyone picking them and i would have expected them by now going by the last two years.it was a bit dry over spring and summer but tis pretty damp now. how are your ceps doing? |
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| jamanda |
I've checked a couple of times to no avail. | ||
| Slim |
Apparently there's been some good flushes over on our side (or whatever close relative we call porcini) that have slowed down with dry weather in August, but some folks are starting to find them again now.
But I've never successfully found/identified them (or truly tried yet - next summer perhaps) |
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| dpack |
umm, interesting i will hope the recent rain changes the situation they are very yummy fresh and superb dried. | ||
| Mistress Rose |
I have found some boletes over the last few weeks, but they are not ceps. Not too sure what they are so never dare to eat them. | ||
| dpack |
basic bolete advice
as the chap says you are unlikely to die but you will regret a bad mistake. is not red and does not stain blue will eliminate all the really nasty ones and a few edible ones. rogers or phillips will help a definite id but the above will keep you safe. |
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| Mistress Rose |
The ones growing in the wood stain blue, but I have never been able to identify them with absolute certainty. Therefore I don't eat them. | ||
| dpack |
best avoid any that stain blue unless you are very sure and quite bold. 
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| dpack |
i got two yesterday from the second best site  and left the one that was half eaten by slugs to spore 
hopefully that heralds the start of the cep season at last and the best spot will follow on soonish. |
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| dpack |
at last they are up, i got about a kilo of button ones from my best site which are now sliced and dried, a couple of days reaching full flavour in a no longer on dehydrator and they will be ready for the jar
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| dpack |
6 kg or so with today's pick, from just 2 birch trees ( best site ) and lots more just starting to show.
it seems a late year is no problem so long as one is patient
yum yum yum
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| sgt.colon |
6 kg is very impressive. What will you do with them all? | ||
| dpack |
eat a few cooked from raw but most get sliced and dried.
a few slices soaked in boiling water then ground to a pulp add a super level of flavour to stews , casseroles, sauces etc etc etc . in combo with anchovy and shreds of mummified pig the depth of flavour that can be put into dishes is amazing. at about £100 kg dried they would be outside my budget but a few hundred quids worth for the cost of a couple of quid in leccy to dry em makes them a larder staple.
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| dpack |
site 2 gave 1.5 kg today
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| Mistress Rose |
Sounds as if you are going to be in ceps for the whole year all ready. I like the occasional mushroom of some sort, but not dried every day all year round. 
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| jp |
Nowt, nader, zilch, nuttin' - ceps seem to be awol where I am. Hoping that they are just running late, but fear the wet summer has scuppered them. Time will tell...
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| dpack |
more oxidation to enhance the umami flavour
dry, rest, quick dry again and then store seems to work well. this reminded me to empty dehydrator and check both trees asap 
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| jp |
Interesting - I must try that. Generally I just dry them (when there's any to find - grrrrr) in the dehydrator and then straight into the storage jar. I guess I'm concerned lest they absorb moisture after drying & then spoil. I even put some rice in the storage containers to absorb any residual moisture.
By the way, which part of the world are you in dpack (I won't be offended if you don't want to say) - I'm hoping your ceps are running ahead of my patches because you are far away! Eternal optimist, me 
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| dpack |
york uk so i would expect your ones to have shown first but rainfall etc etc and the local microclimate of a given spot is probably more of a factor than latitude
here is dry compared to the uk average but that might be a plus for ceps as i have never found them in really damp locations like the west coast or even the west slopes/tops pennines the super experienced polish lady that first taught me a bit about edible shrooms reckoned that whenever autumn starts is the start of the ceps season, so i spose once the birch leaves begin to lose the green and go yellow is a good marker. that would fit with slim's not too warm and fairly damp time scale at least in the uk. my next marker is soil temp under 10 degrees c for the field blewits followed by first frosts for the best pleurotus spp. and hard frosts for the velvet shanks:wink: |
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| Mistress Rose |
Don't think it has been a good year for ceps with us either jp and we are in the south. Has been rather damp generally for about the last month. Not always raining, but generally damp. | ||
| jp |
Still hoping that October might redeem the Cep harvest, but I guess that will be weather dependent here in the south. | ||
| dpack |
got a couple of big uns today and about ten button ones, no point in leaving the buttons as im busy for a few days and chances are they would be too old to be much use.
i already have a few old uns mixed with soil for inoculating new sites
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| Mistress Rose |
Hope you have left enough on the original site to get more next year Dpack. Don't know much about ceps life cycle, but may need some spores from this years crop to keep going. | ||
| dpack |
i always leave some and some just leave themselves by getting too mushy to eat
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| Mistress Rose |
True. For some reason slugs and snails seem to like fungi too. I sometimes go back to get a full ID and find something has eaten it, even the poisonous ones. | ||
| jp |
It seems to be a funny old season - I can't figure out if it's running early, or late, or just not really happening. I found a load of lovely chanterelles yesterday which is much later than I would normally expect to see them. I also found plenty of hedgehog shrooms which are about on time around here. But still no ceps - I'm beginning to wonder if they turned up back in July when we had a load of cool damp weather...... | ||
| dpack |
my outdoor tomatoes are only just starting to ripen but the blackberries were a month or more early so you might be right about a rather odd year for seasons.
quite a few of the ornamental things in homestead park seem to out of season as well. |
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| jp |
Interesting - straws in the wind pointing to an odd season. I'm going to continue to keep an eye on my shroom spots over the next few weeks to see if anything changes. | ||
| buzzy |
As for the oddness of the season, I expect to see the occasional fruit bearer throwing the odd flower out of season - apples seem to do it more than most, as I recall. But this year a lot of brambles have a few flowers on them, and today, at the edge of a big clump of dry Hemlock (Conium maculatum) stems was one plant with beautiful green vegetation and splendid white flowers.
Henry |
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| dpack |
meadow sweet is in full flower for the second time and there seems to be a good crop of red clover flowers for mid october in york | ||
| dpack |
if my maths i correct today's half kilo or so brings the total to about 8 kg from 2 suburban street birch trees
one odd thing is that they have a wide range of birch related shrooms as well as ceps. am,pantherina, am. muscaria are both out at the mo along with half a dozen more types. over a year there are maybe 15 spp, in about a 10m x 2.5 m strip. i wonder if somebody who knows about such things has "seeded" the area, they dont pick as i am the only one harvesting any of them. the ground is pretty moss rich unlike adjacent green strips rather odd but very tasty
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| Mistress Rose |
Could be other people don't pick there because of the am. species. As you have said I think, don't pick any of those unless you are very sure. | ||
| dpack |
imho the main reason folk dont pick there is that the brits have a very low knowledge base regarding shrooms (ds is very unusual to have even a few % as pickers ) and it is not an area with many european locals or a place where folk would walk past to get from A to B .
low footfall and the wrong demographic , hurrah
co growth is normal and no barrier to choosing dinner rather than unpleasantness, oddness or death. the rich diversity of fungi in this small area is a bit unusual though. |
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| Mistress Rose |
I am always very wary of picking fungi as my knowledge is not that good. There are a few I recognise, but most of those have other uses like firelighting or honing tools, so less damaging if you get it wrong. | ||
| jp |
Firefighting? 
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| Mistress Rose |
Fire lighting. King Alfreds Cakes are good for it.
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| sgt.colon |
I now have a vision of MR throwing shrooms at a house fire.
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| jp |
should have read it properly!
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| Mistress Rose |
Well, my remark caused some amusement anyway. Sorry to disappoint you Sgt. Colon, but you get King Alfred's Cake to smoulder and you can transfer fire from one place to another if you need to. I think in the past they used to make special tins to use them as hand warmers too.
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| sgt.colon |
you get King Alfred's Cake to smoulder and you can transfer fire from one place to another if you need to. I think in the past they used to make special tins to use them as hand warmers too. |
Oh now that is pretty funky. On average how long do they smoulder for, do you know?
