This Column is written by Geoff

About me:

I first went out searching for edible fungi over twenty years ago. I have been out and about every autumn since, slowly and steadily adding edible species to my menu as my experience increased and I grew more confident in my ability to get the identification correct and avoid becoming just another fungus fatality statistic.  I have now decided to turn this part-time hobby into a full-time occupation.  Earlier this year I systematically listed everything I could remember finding, and everything I ought to have found but hadn't.  Armed with my hitlist, I wandered about the woods and fields of Sussex searching for those elusive Saffron Milkcaps and Charcoal Burners.  Fortunately for me, 2009 turned out to be a bumper autumn for fungi of all sorts - I managed to locate at least one or two of the fungi I was looking for every time I went out (and yes, both those species really are rather tasty.)   The high point was late October, on a day when I went out with a couple of old friends and came back with examples of nearly thirty different species of edible fungus:



My New-Year's resolution for 2010 will be to replace as much shop-bought produce with foraged produce as possible.  That means something relatively new to me: foraging for plants.  I have just consumed the first full meal I have ever eaten which consisted entirely (or almost entirely) of foraged material: roadkill venison and wild mushroom stew, fried giant funnel with thistle roots, and common mallow and ribwort plantain for greens. Real food. What my ancestors ate.
 
From mid-summer 2010, which is the beginning of the main mushroom season, I will be available full-time to take people out on foraging trips (further details and prices to be anounced later.)   Between now and then I have a lot of learning and experimentation ahead of me, and the anticipation of finally finding out how to tell the difference between Wild Chervil and Hemlock (I passed on the probable Wild Chervil today) and discovering what turns up when you go seriously foraging in the Winter and Spring. Perhaps I'll even lay my hands on some of those elusive, ephemeral, brain-like morels.   That's probably the most enjoyable part of the whole foraging experience: you never know what is around the next corner. 

Geoff


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