New Forest Mushroom Foray
A day in the woods, Hampshire
Personal
Scott and I are outdoors people and if we have time off can often be found exploring The New Forest; it is a magical place.
We have foraged before, but never for edible mushrooms; just simply because it's fun! We have always wanted to go mushroom foraging with someone who knows their stuff & John Wright is certainly that man! You may have seen him on the River Cottage series.
We booked up one of John's Mushroom Foray courses and counted down the days. John got in touch with us to send over details of our meeting place and early one cold Autumn morning we drove through the misty forest to the car park where our day of foraging began.
We began the session with a glass of Cava; a foragers nip and then John told us the plan for the day. We didn't have to venture far at all before we found some edible specimens. The group collected both edible & non edible mushrooms; there was a basket for each, always checking with John, who explained each species as we discovered them. Trust Scott to find a Stinkhorn; and yes they do really stink!
We found a pretty rare species that day, a Cordyceps, which is a parasitic fungus; John was very excited as had not seen this particular species before!
As the sun faded we made our way back to base and set up picnic blankets and prepared the edible mushrooms ready for a fry up! We got to sample four species of edible mushrooms; including Winter Chanterelles & Amethyst Deceivers.
We had a lovely day and it was so nice to spend all day in the forest. There is something hugely satisfying about collecting your own dinner! We had all collected enough to each have a taste with plenty to take home. If you are interested in foraging I recommend booking up or going with an expert! There are plenty of nasty mushrooms out there, which will make you sick at best and some are fatal.
