SC - mushrooms?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Par Leijonhufvud wrote:
> 
> Anyone who have seen anything on what kinds of mushrooms was used in
> period?
> 
> /UlfR

There is a description of the mushrooms Le Menagier feels are best for a
pasty; he says the small red ones, still closed at the top, are best.
What variety that translates to is unknown. I think most of the
varieties known and eaten in Europe today were eaten in period (although
truffles seem to have been terrible abused by the Romans).

Whether we can rely on what amounts to historical hearsay in sources
ranging from Pliny to Root on, for example, the kind of mushrooms that
comprised Claudius' last meal, and whether they were a poisonous, or
merely a poisoned, variety, is unknown.

I seem to recall reading that the cultivated champignon (another agarica
mushroom similar to criminis and portobellos, not to mention Apicius's
Horse Mushrooms, still treasured today in Ireland) has been grown
outside Paris and elsewhere since the 12th or 13th century.

A range of suspected period mushrooms for general Ye Olde Medieval
European use would include ceps or boletus edulis, your basic white
gilled agarica champignon (known in the USA as a "mushroom"), morels (I
believe Ein Buoch Von Guter Spise and Welserin mention those), ditto
chanterelles (ditto). 
  
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com