Mushrooms For Dinner in Noordhoek
With a heavy Ycademy Seminar focusing on the integration of our Author Blogs into the Mobile Web behind us, and this whilst storms, hail, pouring rain, an icy cold and, on top of that, some connectivity problems made our life difficult down here in Noordhoek, South Africa, a gorgeous morning sun and higher temperatures were a perfect reconciliation today! I needed to get out, get my eyes off the screen, move and stretch and refuel in Nature, digital camera in hand.
And… I just had this feeling that I should look for wild mushrooms in the area and, if lucky, prepare a sumptuous meal: mushrooms for dinner!
Mushrooms for Dinner in Noordhoek
Most of us think of mushrooms only in connection with a meal and when looking for them in the forest the main concern is: are they edible or not?
South African Mushrooms – like here the pine rings – are only a part of the so-called Fungi Kingdom and – something that I find very interesting: they don’t belong to the animal nor the plant kingdom but form a so-called Phylum of their own. They don’t belong to the plant kingdom because, unlike plants, they cannot produce their own food through photosynthesis, lacking the essential chlorophyll for this process. However, they ressemble animals as they manage to thrive on plant and animal matter that is dissolved by enzymes and ingested.
Bearing in mind that the number of fungi species is about six times higher than the flowering plant species (about 250,000 x 6), most of us are not aware of what fungi actually are and what vital role they play in the eco-system, where they are essential for the decomposition of organic matter, which in turn provides the nutrients for new growth, keeping Mother Nature flourishing and providing us in turn with good health. If you think of yeast, used to raise bread or to ferment beer… well, it’s a fungi!
Mushroom Photography
Well, my gut feeling was right… after so much rain and sudden sunshine, some beautiful mushrooms had just pushed through the pine needles, soft soil and undergrowth and looked absolutely smashing in the late afternoon light. I got a whole range of beautiful photos – here just some examples of Mushroom Photography with the originals being saved for Stock Photography. I wish you could smell them… they are just divine!
And obviously I collected enough mushrooms to prepare a delicious Mushroom Dinner for Two! Cutting off the stems left me with perfectly clean ‘fruit-bodies’ that did not even need washing! I put them in a pan with some butter, salt and pepper and at medium heat. After a few minutes they were absolutely perfect, especially with some scrambled (free-range) eggs and boiled potatoes with freshly cut parsely!Nothing better than a meal straight from Mother Earth!
And the good news is: I’m still alive… and it won’t be the last round in the forest for me these days… I may just find those huge ceps again… who knows?!
