Foraging and foul play

The Midsomer Murderers are missing a few tricks, thinks Jonathan Young, with nature’s bounty offering potential both on and off the dinner table

The english are oddly addicted to murder, especially of the country-house order. Last week the neighbouring village trooped out in 1930s clobber for a Cluedo evening in aid of the church roof. Naturally, it was the vicar wot dunnit and as he’s our real-life rector there was little need for the dressing-up box.

Quite why we find homicide so homely is a mystery but even now I feel compelled to watch ancient episodes of Midsomer Murders, the imminent demise of every victim heralded by a vixen yowling in the darkness. Rationally, no one would live in a Cotswold idyll with a higher death rate than el Salvador on a Saturday night but then Latin America doesn’t have the warm beer and village fêtes that allow us to overlook a multitude of blunt-object bludgeonings and hermès-scarf stranglings.

Such blatant methods of dealing the death have never perplexed Barnaby but given the choice of weapons lurking in our rural acres I’m surprised his criminals aren’t more inventive: a simple twist of the footpath sign leading the victim into a field of dairy bulls, perhaps; or an invitation to pat the rump of a horse sporting a red ribbon. These “accidents” would present the chief inspector with more of a poser but he’d probably finger the culprit in the end.

What, though, would he make of a dinner party at which everyone ate the same food but only one person died? A cunning crime where the ancient aunt meets her Maker early, leaving everything to the ne’er-dowell nephew? This macabre scenario, born of reading too many Agatha Christies, spills into my mind when I’m collecting shaggy inkcaps (and if the rozzers – and my aunt – are reading this, it’s only journalistic playfulness, honest guv).

Inkcaps are abundant in summer and very good fried in butter and garlic and served on hot toast. But they react badly – very badly – with alcohol. Give the old aunt a large sherry beforehand while abstaining oneself and the family solicitor could be reading her will within a week.

And that is one of the pleasures of foraging for mushrooms: few people beat you to the crop as they’re instinctively fearful of them, with good cause. Inkcaps are at least edible ( sans spirits) but there are a handful of species that will make you ill or worse. The real stinkers come with suitably skull-andcrossbones names, such as the death cap (reputed to have been emperor Claudius’ last dish), destroying angel and funeral bell. But they’re unlikely to be mistaken for the common edible species. The false chanterelle, however, can be mistaken for the edible variety and while it is delicious in an omelette, the former is said to be mildly hallucinogenic (which may be a benefit if you’re in dull company). And you would be unwise to include a hatful of yellow-staining mushrooms in your full english.

I collected a pound or two when I was a teenager but, living up to their name and yellowing at the slightest touch, binned them before reducing the family to collective vomiting. I mentioned this to my parents who, now sceptical of my fungal offerings, refused slices of giant puffball fried in olive oil and bacon fat until I’d tasted it first.

They shouldn’t have worried. Years ago I’d been taught mushrooming by a French chef and he insisted that I collect only species that could not be misidentified, which included the giant puffball, field mushrooms and parasols, all gourmet foods when cooked lightly and less aggressively harvested than the more famous and valuable ceps. As a result, it’s usually possible to come home with something edible even when trout have sulked or the mallard are gleaning someone else’s stubbles.

Such free fallbacks make every foray into the country profitable at this time of year. The watercress is abundant in the nearby chalkstream and makes splendid soup once you’ve washed off the water snails. And it’s surprising how many fruit trees have gone feral and settled in farm hedgerows. A neighbour had no idea that she had a couple of Mirabelle plum trees until I discovered them while retrieving a pigeon and the yearly batch of hipflask gin is easily supplied by a lone damson tree just outside a cottage garden (and therefore fair game). Raspberries also seem to be ready wanderers and there’s a stack of canes flourishing in a local wood.

Farther into the wood, a couple of sweet chestnut trees provide more than enough nuts for Christmas and again no one bothers to gather them, despite the current fad of “foraging”. Like so many aspects of the countryside, people love the idea when it’s on the goggle box but don’t actually do it, preferring their “experience” to be enjoyed lying on the sofa waiting for a pizza delivery.

To balance this, I know a number of extreme hunter-gatherers who live within the M25 and regularly dine off wild fish and fowl, much of the latter bumped off with a silent air rifle. One reprobate has extended his culinary repertoire to include ring-necked parakeets, despatched from his conservatory machan as they attack his apple trees. he serves them in the manner of a Cornish stargazy pie, the heads popping out of a glazed shortcrust lid. Quite delicious.

We are now planning an “extreme dinner party”, at which everyone has to bring ingredients you won’t find in Waitrose. As it’ll be a boozy affair, I don’t plan to rustle up pan-fried inkcaps but if you read of mysterious deaths in Middlesex with one survivor you’ll know I changed my mind – and then stuck to ginger beer.

We are planning an extreme dinner party using ingredients you won’t find in Waitrose