Motorbikes and the Dordogne

Mushrooms for free

You may ask what a picture of Plazac church is doing in a thread about mushroons. Well as I was passing today, I thought it looked so nice that I would share this with all my readers.

Now to mushrooms.
At this time of year the popular mushroom called Cepes appears. I saw them on the Sunday market selling for 15 euros per kilo and almost bought some.
Jude and I decided to clear some of the wood and branches from the drive as we had had rain and wind overnight and now it was dry and warm.
As we were clearing, Jude spotted this sight at the side of the drive. We picked a couple and went into Rouffignac to ask in the pharmacy if they were Cepes and edible. In France the parmacists are trained in mushroom recognition and will give free advice to anyone. They were Cepes. These mushrooms cannot be commercially grown and are very seasonal so they are much sought after. They grow very quickly and where there were none in the morning there could be huge ones in the evening. They grow up to around 20 cm across.
This is the basket that we harvested for our lunch, and they were fantastic. They need frying for about 40 minutes, in oil, with a little garlic added and are then eaten with fried potatos. The locals also eat them in an omelette. where they give the eggs a nice flavour.
From this picture you will see what else we found today. The basket on the lower left had another type of mushroom in it, and we would have taken them to the pharmacy, but we had so many Cepes to eat that it was not worth the bother. You will also see sweet chestnuts, Jude collected these but I don't like them so who knows what she will make with them.
After going out for a drive to Plazac, we found that the wind had also brought down loads of walnuts. Again it is not what I would eat, but Jude will.

posted by madman @ 8:50 pm