Beginner's guide · Chapter 6 of 6

After the outing: cleaning, identifying and storing mushrooms

The outing does not end when you reach the car. What you do with the mushrooms at home, how you clean them, who checks them and how you keep them, is the last stretch of the way, and also the one that matters most for your health.

Clean them as soon as you can

If you already brushed the soil off in the forest, at home a soft brush or a damp cloth is enough. Avoid soaking them: most soak up water like a sponge and lose flavour and texture. Cut away damaged or maggoty parts and sort them by species.

Have someone who knows look at them

If you have the slightest doubt about any of them, do not cook it until an expert has checked it. In autumn, many mycological societies open sessions to identify what people bring back from the forest, often on the Monday after each weekend. In some areas there are also pharmacists trained in mycology who can help.

How to keep them

• In the fridge, in a paper bag or wrapped in a cloth, never in plastic. One or two days at most.
• Dried. Cut into thin slices and dried in the air, in a low oven or in a dehydrator. Dried porcini gain aroma and last for months.
• Frozen. Most freeze better sautéed than raw.
• No home-made preserves in oil unless you know how to make them safely: they carry a risk of botulism.

In the kitchen

Always cook them well: almost no wild mushroom should be eaten raw, and some, such as morels, are toxic if not cooked. Eat moderate amounts, as they are a heavy dish, and if you try a species for the first time, have a small amount and do not mix it with other new ones. A good tip from the old hands: keep one raw mushroom of each kind in the fridge until the next day. If someone feels unwell, it will help to know what they ate.

If someone feels unwell

And with that you know enough to get started. The rest the forest will teach you, one outing at a time. When you want to know where the forest is ready, there is the map.