Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Los champiñones

I guess this post could be called instead, "La seta". In Spanish champiñón means mushroom, while seta means something like a wild mushroom. I used to think it meant mushrooms with a wider, flatter top. But I think in reality it refers to where the mushroom came from. Also perhaps any mushroom that isn't of the typical, store bought variety.

In any case, this year we've gone mushrooming a few times already. Jon is much more successful at finding mushrooms than I am. It didn't help that on the first outing of the season, Coal ran away and got quilled in the face by a porcupine. I don't have any photos of that to share, sorry.

The mushrooms we forage for around here are called morels. See Wikipedia's page on morels for some photos and information.

They are kind of creepy looking, right? After you get over the creepiness and actually eat some, you will likely change your tune very quickly. They sauté up so nicely. We've been eating them on pizzas mostly. Around Jackson, if you find a few pounds of the mushrooms, you can sell them to restaurants for around fifteen dollars a pound.

When I studied Russian in my last year at the University of Washington, I was intrigued by how the Russian language has a bunch of terms for mushroom gathering, gatherer, etc. I hadn't realized people were able to go into the forest to gather these delicious little things. But now, thanks to Jon, I am learning to gather mushrooms and enjoying the extra time I get to spend in the forest.


photo by Jonathan Cohen

Delicious vegan pizza doesn't hurt, either. The morels are the light brown things on the left pizza.

1 comment:

Megan said...

You are turning into a magical forest creature with all of your outdoorsy-ness.