By all accounts the cep season has been phenomenal this year.  Something to do with the unseasonable weather we’ve had, perhaps (there is a silver lining to every cloud).  The parking spaces in Place de la Maire are chock-a-block with cars and small white vans from about 3:30 each afternoon.  The receptionist in Sainte-Foy-La-Grande’s Mairie has been flooded with calls from foragers enquiring about market prices and spaces.  The price per kilo has more than halved since the first harvest arrived at the end of August.

Once the fog has burned off (and we’ve had some really thick lingering fog this autumn) and the sun once again fills the skies the foragers set out.  A skilled mushroom hunter can smell his way to his quarry – ceps are very aromatic – and the warmth from the sun aids the release of the scent.  I understand that there are certain trees that are favoured by ceps and morels which, theoretically, makes the job easier.  However, I have also heard that it isn’t as easy as picking field mushrooms, which I used to do as a kid when we visited my grandparents in Angelsey.

So, back on track.  This is what the car park at the Mairie starts to look like on a good afternoon:

Graham & I had been to have dinner with friends a week or so before these pictures were taken.  They have quite a large bit of woodland behind their house and they told us how, when the ceps are in season, foragers block their driveway and head up through the garden and into the woods.  One man is so proprietorial that he spray paints the windscreens of his competitions’ cars (and it isn’t even his land)!  They invited us to come up (and park next to the house where the car is safe) and forage whenever we like, as they don’t care for them.

This lead me to wondering how such a market can be controlled – after all, f I can trespass and pick a crop valued at €20 a kilo, what protection exists for the property holder?  The answers were to be had from our trusty source of knowledge of all things French, Trudi.  It appears that anyone arriving to sell their fungi must produce the deeds, or attestation, for the parcel of land from which they were harvested.  This must be presented to the Gendarme de Ville upon arrival and before sales are made (you can see Christian, our municipal policeman, in the picture above, 1/3 in from the left).  Vendors are also required to have a set of scales.

Miss Piggy here couldn’t resist.  I wanted to have some more.  I bought a kilo from one of the sellers.  I asked her which she recommended.  She selected large ones with deep green gills and a few smaller, lighter ones to make up the weight.  I shared a few with Trudi, as Robin loves them, and took the rest home to preserve, hopefully by drying, and carry back to Tortola.

Upon arriving home I separated the caps from the stems and laid them on our wooden draining rack to dry.  I then hit the Internet to research how best to preserve them.  Drying seemed to be a good choice.  The other options were canning, pickling or freezing and, as we don’t do checked luggage, these weren’t practical.  Two mornings later I noticed that the biggest of the mushrooms was going off.  Fast.  Some of the others weren’t looking too healthy either.  The problem seemed to be confined to the big greeny ones, not the smaller or whiter ones.  Clearly drying without a commercial sechoir wasn’t going to be a viable option, and I was damned if I’d let them go to waste.  After some more research I bought some olive oil and a mason jar and set to seeing what I could salvage from my extravagant purchase.

I sliced what I could from the manky mushroom and sauteed it in some oil.  And discovered that maggots love ceps.  Yuck!  Lots of tiny whitish wrigglies emerged from the slices as they encountered the heat.  My stomach shuddered involuntarily.  I scooped the slices from the oil and then strained the carcasses from the flavoured oil.  It was fine.  Promise.

I sliced what remained of the mushroom caps and left the legs, as the French call them, to continue drying, as they didn’t seem so susceptible to the depredations of the maggots.  I packed slices into a jar and poured cold olive oil onto them and put the whole lot into the fridge before I could witness more maggotty deaths.  They seem to be fine.  However, the exercise was probably an own-goal as Mo, returning to France en route to starting at university, hates mushrooms and we’re running down the fridge ready to depart for Tortola again, so shan’t have occasion to eat them.  I hope that Robin enjoys them!