A Pocketful of Porcini

I consider my parents the ultimate locovores.  When most people talk about eating local, they mean produce from local farms and family gardens.  But when my parents talk about eating local, they mean exploring the native vegetation and trying out what grows in an area naturally. 

I have been visiting a lovely small town in Nova Scotia (hence the recent lack of blog posts – Internet is difficult here), where my my parents have a summer home.  This summer, they have been enthusiastic about trying out “goutweed” (or more pleasantly, “bishop’s weed”), a decorative plant that has run wild throughout the town.  Ok, technically it is not “native,” but near enough.  They have an entire field of these pretty, yet invasive, plants, so, upon finding that it was edible, they decided to do an experiment.  I will tell you  more about that as it unfolds (provided I’m not in the hospital).

Before my parents moved their summers to Canada, we had a small cabin on the mountains in Arizona (we lived in the desert).  We enjoyed heading up the mountain over weekends, and in the fall, my parents would start the Great Mushroom Search.  We had a property backing on to national forest, so we had many acres of woods to roam around and search for edible mushrooms.  My parents had, through the years (and experimentation – no, we never got sick), narrowed their search to the king bolete (no, don’t look it up yet).  This rather large mushroom resembles a loaf of bread, and has no poisonous look-alikes.  It could be found under a lump of pine needles and dirt.  Once you found the telltale mound, you  brushed it aside in the hope of discovering the prize.

We could often find many paper bags full of these mushrooms.  We would meet other mushroom hunters, but the supply was plentiful enough to satisfy everyone.  Over the years, we discovered the best places to search: the old school, the abandoned house at the bottom of the hill, the woods above our house.  We would chop them up over the next few days, carefully cut out the worm-ridden parts, saute them with a bit of butter or olive oil, and serve.  They were flavorful and melted in the mouth, tasting like the woods they came from, and unlike any other mushroom we knew. 

Sadly, in 2003, a major fire swept through the forset and burnt our house, and many others to the ground.  My parents eventually sold the land, prefering to retreat to the cool summers of Nova Scotia instead.  I have been back to the mountain twice since, and never during mushroom season.

A few years later, I was in a market, looking through their exotic mushrooms, when I found a familiar, loaflike shape.  I searched for the price, but could not find them.  Because they had no price, the store gave them to me for free.  I called my parents to tell them, when my dad said “oh, those mushrooms are usually very expensive in the stores, but they go by some other name… Porcini, I think.”  Here I was, never realizing that I ate porcini, one of the most sought-after mushrooms in the world, by the pound.

On this trip to Nova Scotia, we aren’t eating such well-known delicacies.  But I have many adventures to share with you once I return to the Queen City.

~Aurora