Beginner Level Mushroom Foraging – Hedgehog Fungus

I’ve written this short article because I’m going to post a recipe for a wild mushroom risotto and don’t want anyone to go out and do themselves any harm. Please read it carefully!

I once heard a fellow forager say that in the school of learning wild food, mushrooms are very much in the advanced level, A level if you will. There are literally tens of thousands of types of mushroom and fungus out there with less than 1% being edible. For that reason I would say never eat any mushroom until you are not 100% certain of what it is. With the alternative being death or a life of kidney dialysis I’m sure you can see where I’m coming from. There are horror stories coming out quite regularly about people consuming poisons mushrooms and they never end well.  This article should not be used for identification purposes; a book or app such as Rogers Mushrooms will go along way to helping you with any identification but again I would say be very very careful. 

Archie with a Hedgehog Fungus

 

 If that hasn’t put you off completely then the best one to start with is the Hedgehog Fungus also called the Wood Hedgehog, Sweet Tooth, Pigs Trotter, Wood Urchin, Pied de Mouton (Sheep’s foot) in French or Hydnum repandum by its official name. The reason this is the best one to start with is that it is one of the easiest to identify with spikey tooth like structures where you would expect to find the gills on a normal shop bought mushroom. They are cream white in colour sometimes tan, grow to 5-15cm tall and can usually be found in mixed woodland although I usually find mine in coniferous areas.  They have a nutty flavour and a firm texture even when cooked. Older examples can taste a little bitter but a long cook can usually rid them of this. The only similar non-edible mushroom it could be confused with is the Sarcodon scabrosus so it’s a great one to start with!

 

Four Hedgehog Fungus in situ

Oak smoked venison Jerky

Going Paleo...

Traditionally used technique used to dry meat to extend its shelf life.   The exact origin of this technique isn’t known but it would have been obvious to early humans that the smoked meat lasted a lot longer than raw and that may have been discovered due to the meat being kept in a smoky environment  to keep the flys away.  Europeans came across the technique on their first trips to the Americas.  It is also very good for travelling, long hikes, mountain climbing due to the high protein content and also the fact that the equivalent weight of fresh meat would be 6 times heavier.

A friend recently donated a large bag of venison to me, aware of how sick I’m getting of fish.  The best method I could think of to preserve such a large amount of meat was to smoke it.  It was also a good opportunity to practice a recently acquired skill.

Before I got started though, I had to build the smoker...