Monday, February 1, 2010

Blue Foot Mushrooms

I was with Andrew and Lauren Saturday and we stopped by Whole Foods in Venice, a gigantic store, and I found a type of mushroom I've not had before: blue foot. I had to have some.
At $39.99 per pound, we just got four to sample. They are light, but they still cost $8.00. They obviously get their name from the purplish stem which is more or less pronounced on each one. They are apparently rare and those around this time of year are grown in Europe.

You are not supposed to eat them without cooking them, but it is not clear to me whether it is because they are so woody that they don't taste good, or because they are potentially harmful. I think it is the former. 

They are apparently good with wild game, because of their strong flavor.

The cut blue foots below.

Andrew cooked them and he tends to like his mushrooms better raw. I, on the other hand, like mine well cooked.
They were pretty stiff which may be more a reflection on Andrew not cooking them as long as I would, but the firmness is consistent with what I have read about them. On my quest for mushrooms, I've been eating them all approximately the same way: cooked in oil or butter. The next level would be actually trying them in dishes where they are complementing other ingredients. There is nothing about these that would cause me to choose them above white cap mushrooms, except the novelty.


2 comments:

  1. How cool! I love mushrooms (so does Savannah by the way), and would love to taste these sometime.

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  2. Cook all wild mushrooms well. You never know what's on them, and also, some edible wild mushrooms, such as Morels, are toxic when raw or undercooked.

    The "Blue Foot" you bought are better known as Blewits and grow in the wild in the US and are often very abundant at the right time of year in the areas where they occur.

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