PufPuf23
PufPuf23's JournalMy contribution to Thanksgiving this year will be Tanoak (Matusake) Mushroom soup.
Recipe (very rich)
Fresh Tanoak Mushrooms (don't wash)!! - scrape and brush to clean then slice
Butter
Shallots and garlic.
1/2 and 1/2 milk and sherry wine (I use Christian Brothers) in about a 2:1 ratio
I don't really measure but say quart milk, handfull of chopped shallots and garlic (3/4 shallots), and 4-8 mushrooms depending on size. One can make a smaller batch for 1-4 people.
Melt butter
Add tanoaks, shallots and garlic
Cook just several minutes until soft
Add milk and sherry and bring to a rapid boil. Take off heat, you are done.
Sometimes sprinkle a dash of cayanne pepper and or dried cilantro on the soup once in bowl for color.
Here is a link to a page with pictures and also links to many common forest mushrooms. This nice webpage is from New England and Eastern Canada but about 2/3s the mushrooms listed to the left are local for me. I live on a National Forest inholding about 20 miles inland from Redwood National Park in extreme northcoast California.
http://mushroom-collecting.com/mushroommatsutake.html
Here is a Matusake slideshow from the New Yorker (one needs to subscribe to read the article now)
http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/08/20/slideshow_070820_bilger#slide=1
I grew up in the 50s and 60s here where tanoak mushrooms were part of the round of life in my family. We would gather them each year and my Mom and grandmother would dry, can, and pickle tanoaks.
Back in the 70s while an undergrad at Cal I cracked up because I saw them for sale in Berkeley's Monterey Market for $30/lb.
Since the late 80s there have been commercial buyers and pickers that buy by grade. The unopened buttons (#1 grade) are sometimes purchased wholesale for $50-$100/lb. They mostly go to Japan.
98% plus of the nearby land is National Forest and one needs to get a personal use or commercial use permit. The last several years a one day personal use permit from the Forest Service costs $35 and one must deface the mushroom so it cannot be sold commercially. I can find them in my "yard" so the heck with that. A commercial permit is much more.
Personally, I would never pick for sale on principal but the tanoaks give the woods cops something to do.
Your question is trivial. The women are trivial.
War crimes and war profiteering are not trivial.
Our politics and media are putrid snot but I am glad to have voted straight Democratic since McGovern (when first legal).
I even voted again for DiFI (husband Richard Blum) after stating at DU I could not in good conscious vote for her again.
My votes all "won" except GMO food labeling in California.
Look how even DiFi was left out of the loop on this mess. Cantor!!??? Morelll!!??
Waking up at DU is not a solution.
Seriously I do not know a solution. My life is essentially over because of age, health, and finances. I am glad I do not have biologic children and have been better to step children than biologic parents.
I have spent the last 30+ (Reagan on) years in a society indoctrinated by post-Reagan policy and politics that have degraded everything perceived about life prior to 1980.
The election is over is over. We won. Let us do better please.
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Member since: Thu Jul 26, 2007, 05:26 PM
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