The Trumpet of Death

My better half has tagged along on many jaunts that are more in tune with my interests than hers.  Hey, its not my fault that the Romans managed to make it to all the odd corners of Europe and the UK!  So when I have a chance to indulge one of her interests of course I oblige.

Mushroom hunting.  Or to use something of the "inside baseball" term: Fungus Forays.

Thing is, I don't like mushrooms.  Other than a few niche roles in certain recipes I find them a distraction.  Probably this dates back to my childhood in the late 50's and early 60's.  Back then fresh foods were way less common and there are many perfectly acceptable menu items that were, for me, ruined for decades.  Spinach that glopped out of a can as a green soggy mass.  Low grade canned salmon of a sort that I now associate with cat food.  Heck, I didn't even enjoy coffee until after Med School....something about seeing insipid cups of Folgers all those years.

I've gotten over most of these, but still don't like mushrooms.  But on a recent fall morning we went over hill and dale in search of them.  Surprisingly I'm pretty good at finding them.  It's all pattern recognition, the same skill set that makes me a reasonably good archaeological excavator and that once gave me darn good abilities at unraveling complex medical diagnoses.  For mushrooms you have to scan for color, shape, surrounding plants, light conditions, distance from path and so forth.  Soon I was finding entire patches of these guys.

Behold the Black Trumpet.  Known to the French as "La Trompette du Mort".  See, when even the edible varieties have names like The Trumpet of Death I think my skepticism is not just understandable but worthy of commendation.

Well, anyways, we found a lot of them that day.  Roughly 2.5 pounds of them.  When dried it will be much less but it is worth noting that dried Black Trumpets are going for about sixty bucks a pound.

I report with sadness that my first tasting was only so-so.  My wife cooked up an omelette with onions and small Trumpet bits.  The taste is as advertised, quite potent.  Not exactly unpleasant but unusual and overpowering.  I'm game for further research and think they'll be better in gravy and sauce applications.   

Odd the life skills you acquire later on.  Now I'm basically one of those dogs that people keep around to hunt truffles.  Not that they, or I, am interested in eating them.  No, its the fun of the hunt and the prospects of having one's ears scratched and being told "Good Boy!".