GET A TASTE FOR NATURE ON A FUNGI FORAGING COURSE

Learn to tell your russulas from your boletes as you get to grips with fungal families on a one-day mushroom foraging course. Words: Chris Horton

Having torn off a tiny piece of the purple cap, Marlow Renton places it in his mouth and rolls it around with the tip of his tongue before spitting it out. “Right,” he says, holding out the specimen to the group. “Who wants to nibble a poisonous mushroom?”

It’s not a rhetorical question. Moments later, we’ve all done the same. “Did you all get the burn?” he enquires. For my first taste of a wild mushroom on this fungi foraging course in the New Forest, toxic chilli comes as a surprise, to say the least. Marlow, co-founder of Wild Food UK, had, after all, promised to lead us “from gourmet mushroom to gourmet mushroom”. But the family this mushroom belongs to is, he assures us, one we should get to know. The russulas — easily identified by their flaky gills and crumbly stems — are an abundant back-up when the top-tier options are in short supply. If there’s no strong taste — hot, foetid, spicy — then you’re good to go. Needless to say, what’s left of this one won’t be part of our meal at the end of the day.

Heading into the forest, it’s not long before an excited commotion beneath an oak tree has Marlow running over to confirm we’re in the presence of fungal royalty. With its cartoonish bulbous stem, this baby porcini is instantly recognisable as the cover star of cookery books the world over. It’s one of the boletes, a relatively safe family for novice foragers that contains an abundance of prime edibles. The rule here is “no red [sponge pores under the cap], no blue [oxidisation on cutting the flesh]”. Although this means discarding a few tasty mushrooms, like the lurid bolete, it also

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means we’ll swerve a few nasty ones, including the ominous-sounding satan’s bolete.

Minutes later, we come across a cluster of chanterelles, another unseasonable gourmet discovery. Glowing like buttercups against the mossy path, they smell like apricots and have wrinkly gills. Its drabber sister, the winter chanterelle, was the one Marlow had primed us to meet. In a larch copse, we fan out like a disorganised forensic team to scour the forest floor for the brown caps and distinctive yellow, twisted stems. At first, there’s nothing, then we see one, then two — suddenly they’re everywhere, forcing Marlow to run around scrutinising each new find. “You’d pay a fortune for these in Borough Market,” he grins.

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