 |
|
Penny buns, also known as porcinis, can be prepared in a number of ways, though some prefer to eat them raw.
|
|
A long, warm and rainy autumn may yet spur growth significantly.
Drought still delays the mushroom yield in most of Southern and Central Finland. In places, no mushrooms have sprung up.
“In Southern and Central Finland there have been no proper rains as there usually would have been. Now mushrooms have gradually started to spring up in some places, but we need a great deal more rain. For its part, Lapland is a different world. There have been plenty of boletuses there all through August,” explains Kauko Salo, a senior researcher of the Finnish Forest Research Institute.
In Southern and Central Finland the mushroom crops are a month behind schedule. Often the season begins in July-August.
In Pirkanmaa, the season has already started, as well as on the coastal regions of Ostrobothnia. However, in Eastern Finland there are places with no boletuses or russulas.
According to Loreno Dalla Valle, the CEO of the Dalla Valle porcini exporting company, boletuses have sprung up where the Asta and Veera storms raged.
“There the porcini season has started, whereas in Northern Karelia the season is just beginning. I believe there will still be a splendid yield unless the snow falls before the mushrooms are ready, Dalla Valle predicts.
|
Conserving mushrooms in a freezer
– Mushrooms are well suited for freezing.
– Russulas, boletuses, chanterelles, waxy caps and other mild mushrooms are heated in their own juice, cooled down and frozen in containers.
– Penny bun bolets can also be frozen raw if you cut them into slices.
– Piquant milk caps are cooked from 4 to 5 minutes in ample water, rinsed with cold water, drained and cooled.
– False morels must absolutely be cooked twice in ample water (1 part mushrooms, 3 parts water) before freezing. The cooking time is five minutes each time. After both cooking rounds, the mushrooms must be rinsed with ample water.
– Mushrooms can also be conserved by drying, vacuum- sealing or pickling.
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
Only pick mushrooms you recognise with certainty.
|
|
Yield may yet be abundant
According to Salo, the crop estimates are still based on guesswork. If the conditions are favourable in the autumn, there is still time for mushrooms to spring up, but in the worst case the season will be very short.
The autumn should be long, warm and rainy to fill the baskets with mushrooms. If night-time frost freezes the ground, the mushroom populations will remain dormant.
“Humus has dried up. The mushroom populations have not grown but they are not dead either. Still, each year there have been some mushrooms,” Salo notes.
According to Marttaliitto (The Martha Organization), there is no reason to despair as long as there is no snow.
“Often the mushroom crops may still turn up in late September. Even in October there have been impressive penny bun bolet crops,” notes Development Manager Arja Hopsu-Neuvonen.
Heaths are very dry so one should head for wetter forest lands for mushrooming. A savvy mushroom gatherer will go to spruce-dominated mossy hollows.
Hopsu-Neuvonen explains that there are plenty of white fly agarics and false chanterelles in the forests. For this reason, she urges everyone to be careful.
“I recommend leaving all white mushrooms in the forest.”
PAULA ROPPONEN
STT
|
