Wild mushrooms are gorgeous, but the astronomical cost of these fungal delights means that I rarely get to eat them in the quantities I would like. However, the fertile Sussex Downs are home to numerous spores and fungi and whilst varieties such as Chanterelles and Seps are undoubtedly foodie gold, eating the wrong ones can kill you dead.
Offering a doorway into the clandestine world of fungus is Chichester based head chef and veteran forager Nik Westacott. With the autumn marking the start of the wild mushroom season, Devour Sussex caught up with the mushroom man to get the inside track on how to bag yourself some wild mushrooms for nowt.
Nik's twenty years experience has led him to teach wild food courses at his local collage as well as speaking spines and spores on both Channel 4 and Sky. According to Nik, the world of fungi and its variants is actually bigger and more diverse than the insect kingdom itself, problem is that most of most varieties if eaten could leave you in real trouble.
Combining his passions for cooking and foraging, Nik offers wannabe foragers the chance to learn the ropes, by spending a morning scouring local woodland hunting for spores and fungi. Nik follows up the hunt by notching up a gourmet three-course mushroom inspired lunch at his guest house, 82 Fishbourne.
Foraging days run from September to early November depending on the weather, with each hunt kicking off at 10am with tea, coffee and 30 minutes tactical briefing on how to find and identify your delicacy from your death knell. Inline with The Wild Mushroom Pickers Code of Conduct, groups are kept to a maximum of six people taking just one basket of fungi per group from each hunt.
With the exact locations kept secret, Nik tells me that whilst fungi can be found in a broad range of environments, the ideal conditions should be a damp, moist and cool (but not frosty) morning.
With wild mushrooms costing a fortune, learning the basics of foraging could not only save you money but also give you stacks of gorgeous fungus with which to cook up a storm.
Just make sure you avoid the Amanita family which includes the malevolent Destroying Angel and Death Cap varieties, unless you are looking to cook a literal last supper.
A morning foraging with Nik costs £75 per person including lunch, to book visit http://www.82fishbourne.co.uk