One of my favorite things about fall, after Halloween of course, is mushroom picking. If any of you grew up like I did, you might remember being told to never eat wild mushrooms! However, this of course is not true! You just can’t eat all wild mushrooms.
I first came across mushroom picking in the Czech Republic. It is a national past time, and most Czechs know which mushrooms one can eat and which you can’t. The Czechs have a great saying when it comes to mushrooms.
All wild mushrooms are edible. Some you can only eat once.
Mushroom picking is not as big in Sweden, but it is growing. And the cool thing is that here on the coast of Sweden we have special mushrooms called “Chantarelle” or “kantarell” in Swedish. They are the mushroom Cantharellus cibarius. These mushrooms are very delicious, and last week I had the chance to go out mushroom picking with the “Svamp Kung” (Mushroom King).
There are two type of Chantarelle. One is brown, a bit smaller, and easy to find if you know where to look.
It may be hard to see when you don’t know what you are looking for. They are brown and the hole in the top, and the gills underneath the cap are what you can use to tell them apart from other mushrooms.
These brown ones are much more common than the much sought after Gold Chanterelle mushroom (though in my opinion, both taste the same).
The Gold Chanterelle mushrooms need to be eaten right away. I fried mine up with some butter and had them on my smorgås when I fika-ed. Yummy! The brown ones are much better because you can dry them. I simply laid them on hanging cheese cloth and they dried all on their own! When one wants to use them, you just put them in water for 5 minutes and they are good to go!
It was a lot of fun being out in the forest, hunting for mushrooms. And I have to say the trip was a success!
Since I have tons of mushrooms and will be mushroom picking again next week, I thought, why not give away some mushrooms? If you want some dried mushrooms, leave a comment on why you should get them! I’ll pick a winner on the 15th. If you are near Skellefteå and just want to stop by, drop me a line, I have way too many!
I would love to find mushrooms when I visit Sweden in 2012. Ia m from Malaysia and hope you can help or tell me places I can find rich bounties. What are the best months to forage?
What other types of mushroom do you pick?
Fall is the time to go, that is September to November. Of course it depends on the weather. There are others that can be picked, but chantarelle a the most abundant and yummiest. These you find in the forest near the coast. Good luck!
I’m on a gap year right now (in Stockholm at the moment) and would love to go on a mushroom picking outing of some sorts! Is there such a thing? I obviously can’t go hunting by myself so all I need is someone to go with – do you know of anything like that? 🙂
Hmm, I don’t 🙁 I found some friends that hunted mushrooms, have you asked around? Anybody reading this want to help??
This is my third year in Sweden and LOVE to pick mushrooms! I was very lucky to have found a batch of Black trumpet mushrooms and we enjoyed them for many days last year. I am now familiar with a few varieties but would love to learn more. We have found only a few gold chantarelle in our search and am a bit disappointed and wish we could get more of those but they may not grow here in Akersberga. I had much better luck as you said with these you have pictured. If you are anywhere near by, I would love to go picking with you!
Cheers,
Song
So glad you have enjoyed mushroom picking! I’ll be in Sweden in September, but may be hard to get out there to pick, I’m only in Stockholm a few days. But you should come down and meet up! 🙂
today l went o forest just backside my bf house l found many mushroom but l did’t know if hey can eat but l take some a yellow mushroom l think is gold chanterell mushroom , l don’t know how i can post some pics of them here too ^^
Maybe try posting it on our Facebook page? http://www.facebook.com/SwedishFreak, you should be able to upload them there. If you did find gold ones, you are lucky! 🙂