This talk of truffles reminds me that we are now entering the Spring Morel season.
They say that the Gypsies would light a large fire on a patch of earth near their camp around late Winter in order to encourage the elusive Morel mushroom to poke its head above ground at Springtime.
I had always thought that this story was a bit of a myth, but then - after years of fruitless searching - I found one Morel in the most unlikely place, right outside my workshop.
The patch of land is stony, covered in weeds and seemingly a truly inhospitable environment for any mushroom, let alone a Morel. It is in the corner of a sort of rough car park created by the army in WW2, who used it as a parade ground. It is a favourite spot for dumping rubbish and a few years ago it would regularly be used to dump stolen cars.
Sometime in the Winter, someone abandoned a stolen car on it and set fire to it before they left. The police told me that the car was registered to HMP Cardiff, so there was a certain ironic revenge in the theft, I dare say.
The police also told me that a burned-out car is a very dangerous thing which must be treated with great care, but they did not tell me why. It turns out that - aside from all the other toxic chemicals caused by the fire - hydrofluoric acid is created when O-rings are burned. This is the acid that does not stop at the skin when it hits your flesh, it carries right on down to the bone and beyond. Often, exposed limbs have to be amputated to stop it. It is used industrially to etch glass.
Anyway, they took the wreck away, leaving a blackened and oily patch of charred ground which stank for weeks.
A couple of months later when the weeds had began to reclaim the earth, what should I see poking up from the ground but a single Morel mushroom.
I did not pick it, let alone eat it. Normally you never wash mushrooms, but Morels are so spongy and holey that you have to dig out the dirt which it collects on its way up, and this area is also a prime spot for dog walkers who do not carry little plastic bags.
So the Gypsies were right.
An interesting history.
ReplyDeleteRomany traditions often make sense
Like cooking hedgehogs wrapped in clay...
DeleteAre you sure this is not a shaggy murel story?
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of shagging murals in Pompeii.
DeleteWe often only get snippets of stories, so we miss context or relevance. Add to that mishearing what's spoken and then passing it along makes it miraculous we know anything of our history at all.
ReplyDeleteHow does that relate? Just wondering, not doubting you.
DeleteI do like Megan's answer. How does one morel growing through a toxic field prove a gypsy story? One morel in how many yeas of observation of the field?
ReplyDeleteIf you remember, the Gypsies scorched the land to promote the growth of morels. Of course, this one instance doesn't prove the theory beyond doubt, but I cannot imagine any other mushroom growing on that patch of land. More science needed. This was the only morel I have found in about 30 years of looking for them.
DeleteI've never seen nor heard of a Morel mushroom. It is quite unlike any mushroom seen or sold in the grocery stores in New England. Let's hope nobody decides to harvest this Morel and add it to their favorite recipe.
ReplyDeleteYou see a lot in French shops when they are available and expensive restaurants here. I know a commercial picker who would include them in the hunt. I know of two prized mushrooms of Springtime - St. George's (around St. George's Day - Shakespeare's birthday) and the morel.
DeleteI trust you won't be burning cars to encourage Morel growth, Tom?
ReplyDeleteNot with the price of second hand cars as they are today.
Delete