Bay bolete, Xerocomus badius

A personnel favourite, and would put it up there with the cep, the taste is great but the main reason I favour it is that it suffers much much less from larvae infestation and slug attacks, the squirrels have a taste for it though so there will be a few bite marks about.

What to observe.

the cap.chestnut brown and smooth,suede like when young, grows up to 10-12cm

the tubes. off white,yellow to green with age.

the stem. pale brown-reddish,thin often curved at the base and can be quite long.

the flesh. whitish flesh turning slightly blue when cut.

the taste/smell. mushroomy,nutty.

the habitat.coniferous spruce and pine forest.

A young Baybolete,with soft cap.

Note; the cap has actually exploded of this one, after a spell of

dry weather, followed by heavy rain the soakage of water

causes the stems of some bolete (which are quite tough) to split where they meet the cap, popping it off.

One with an elongated stem

having grown through moss.

Phallus impudicus, Stinkhorn

Most often you'll smell these before you see them, they grow in all types of woodland settings and where you have them they'll be in abundance. They are edible ( tasted mossy) but only in the first stage of growth once they start to mature stay clear.They start out like an egg covered in a mucus and membrane before developing to their phallic state, there are a couple of varieties,including the Dictyophora duplicata ( Netted Stinkhorn) though restricted to the Southern Hemisphere with a net like veil below the cap and the Mutinus caninus (Dog Stinkhorn) pinkcapped.

Enough said the pictures will do.

the edible stage, to eat clean off the membrane and the gel like mucus, slice and pan fry

starting to mature, no smell yet

mature, at this stage they start to stink and attract the flies

past it's personnel best,

though a good time to observe it's honeycomb structure

Spuds for National Potato Day

Urban garden. Our spuds grew quite happily and blight free in containers in the yard this year, we have Charlotte and Roosters, planted for educational purposes, true we won't yield a tonne of them, but we will have created a food memory and will be able to say in kid-like talk 'Remember the one time', which is about holistic as it can get really.Once is enough to spark that moment of experience of sowing, growing and harvesting your own produce, and potatoes deliver the goods especially when grown in the yard as they can be 'hoked' up washed and in the pot cooking within minutes.

Country living, I've lot's of previous convictions on the charge of spud liking. At an early age they, apart from being staple diet, were an important source of income through long summer days to icey cold starts in late october. Gathering spuds was always good craic, it was our 'Vendange' and allsorts met on the field and your tally of bags or boxes a competitive count off at all stages of the day. Cash at the end of the day or week was the reward,and usually spent on new clothes.

I was lucky in my later teenage years to get a mix of the work involved with potato production through my uncle Bernie and cousins the Henry family. From planting and gathering to the final bagging for sale to the merchant: a four person job; one graping the stored potatoes onto the riddle for sorting {the riddle had different sized grade settings for market preferences} two at the riddle removing any bad spuds {this was the most important bit as the merchant would pre-order a couple of tonnes and, at any point of loading the lorry, untie a bag to check the spuds. If he was unhappy with the grade then that was it,all would be rejected, off loaded and the riddling process would have to be redone. That would have been Soul destroying!} and one person removing tying, stacking and replacing the bags as they filled. As the day went on and you tired, the target set for the day became a killer. By evening I was glad when the end arrived.

Hard work but satisfying and rewarding, with the warmth of the aunt Sarah's kitchen, a pot of stew and a steaming plate of spuds with fresh baked soda bread, a weekend bake of tart, cake and buns by the range. I'd just started a catering course at that point and for my benefit aunt Sarah would offer comment on the latest bakes, noting a particular batch of pastry being short on texture or crust on a bread having got caught out on the vagaries of the 'Aga'. That was an education in baking for me and a bonus to the happiness of a job well done round the table, cash on the nose for me and disco time later.

Blueberries with Indian Meal Slim cakes.

My mother used to make
yellowmeal or Indianmeal soda farls, they were drier and grainy unlike the regular soft farl she'd make and to be honest I was a picky eater then and didn't bother with them or the trend of marrow jam at the time either. I'd have one now though, hot from the griddle with a spoon of blueberry jam on the melting butter.

People are familiar with ground corn as a starch in the form of Polenta, still it's not always a favourite on the menu,making it palatable is the task. A small amount either set and grilled with parmesan is alright or 'wet' as a mop up to a ragu of strong flavours help it.

Indian meal,much maligned as a Famine food here in Ireland when it was brought in as a relief food and on it's own it would have been hard to eat, the fact that it isn't very nutritious didn't help either, and that there was good flour being shipped out of the country was part of the crime earning it the low esteem that it has held.
Back from the Dublin/Wicklow mountains picking fraughans/blaeberries/bilberries/myrtilles/blueberries I have a blueberry polenta cake in mind,but for a simple quick reward now, I retreat to a great Irish staple 'a bit of soda'
As opposed to the tradtional soda farl recipe from an earlier blog post, this one will be based on a 'Slims cake' recipe sweet and rich with butter and sugar in the mix.

Indian Meal 'Slims' Cakes
Ingredients, makes 3 scones
5 oz 142gms self raising flour
5 oz 142gms fine polenta, maize/cornmeal.
2oz 56gms butter
1 oz 28gms sugar
Pinch salt
120gms Buttermilk

Method
Sieve the flour into a bowl add the polenta/cornmeal and sugar cut the buter into small cubes add to thOoe dry ingredient and rub it in, add the butermilk use a flat blade,and mix to a paste. Knead lightly on a floured board press or roll out thinly.
Bake on a hot griddle or heavy based pan.
serve warm with butter and some fraughan/blueberry jam.

nb. If you have an Indian foodstore near you buy their coarse ground cornmeal, it's cheaper than the 'chic' polenta.