Rustic Posh
0 comment Wednesday, June 25, 2014 |
I bemoaned imported food recently, wondering about the smarts of having blueberries in a country where they aren't indigenous and so forth. Well, here's one import that I'm sort of glad is here: morels! Oh gods, these little mushrooms of heaven have made it to the UK and I am so very very very happy; we used to pick these as kids in the forests of Minnesota and Neil Gaiman, a Brit now living in my native state, has waxed philosophical about these lovely little morel morsels. I honestly never thought I'd see or taste them on these shores and I have to admit I'm rather glad they've made it.
Since son was in school today and the fruit-bowl only had one slightly past-its-best banana in it, I decided it would be a good day to go to the local market and get as much fruit as I could carry. This used to be a regular trip for me but of late not so much for the usual spoonie reasons. However the sun was shining, I had saved up as many spoons as I could and taken my pain meds as well. I covered up for the sun which is still shining bright outside, and off I went with cane and backpack.
I have missed the market trips, but what I hadn't realised was the market had missed me as well. I've known most of the stall-holders for years now, and they've known me since my son was just a baby in a Tigger suit. The young lad on the fruit stall is now a young man in his own right and I almost didn't recognise him this summer. The organic stallholder asked where I had been and whether I was all right - I tried to put the brave face on but these folk know me - "Right, now the real answer is...?" Everyone was glad to see me and even shaved a bit of cash off the top to round out the numbers and spare me digging for change.
And there was the mushroom stall with its lovely wild fungus, and the wild garlic which I have become such a huge fan of. We chatted a bit and I was thinking just to get the garlic but then realised he had morels. MORELS! Good grief, I couldn't believe it. They're selling well, too - in a place where folk don't tend to like to try anything too new, these were selling well and he showed me that they were starting to spore in the containers he was keeping them in. I said I was thinking about shaking a few over a pile of woodash and trust to luck! The price was scary, but it was worth it, so along with loads of fruit and other nice tidbits, I had a small punnet of morels to go with the load of wild garlic.
It's funny, really, how everyday food in one place becomes haute cuisine elsewhere; morels are breaded and fried in the US and come heaped on plates like chips or onion rings after a good gathering session. The idea of slicing them fine as a garnish and charging a fortune for the pleasure is foreign to me, so I decided to make some rustic posh-food; homemade brioche, a local cheddar, local bacon, free range eggs with pan-fried wild garlic and morel mushrooms. I topped it all off with the first berries of the year on the stalls - a rare thing for me as I almost always saving the fruit for my son.
I am now pleasantly stuffed to the gills, about to enjoy a cuppa on my daybed outside and reserve the last few spoons I have for the return of my son from school.
Bliss.

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