On it you will find innumerable groups among them simply ‘Bolets’ (wild mushrooms) which has 535 fans scattered across Catalunya, each as secretive as the other when it comes to prime hunting grounds. A love of the mushroom they may share, but you can be sure they don’t reveal its whereabouts. And yet, throughout the autumn you’ll see carloads of folk heading out of the city and into the hills in the hope of finding this most elusive of gourmet treasures. As the late great Catalan gourmand and writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán put it, the best reason to go mushroom picking is that it’s one of the few things left in the world that is free. Add to that the thrill of a tramp through the fallen leaves, a slap up lunch in the country and maybe a night in a stone masia with some friends, a bottle of wine and a crackling fire and this mushroom hunting caper starts to seem like a rather good idea. There is good mushroom hunting ground all over Catalunya, but the Berguedà region must surely be its capital. The area is said to have more than 1500 different species (for culinary purposes, hunters generally select from the 30 or so tastiest varieties) sprouting from its damp, dark forests and hedgerows. On any given weekend through the autumn, all along the old Catharist trail known as the Camí dels Bons Homs (the Path of Good Men), which runs from the Montségur Castle in Berga to Tarascon on the French side of the Pyrenees, it’s all about the shrooms: the biggest, the prettiest and the tastiest just like the prize vegetable contest in farmers’ festivals everywhere. You’ll spot the boletaires too, crouched furtively beneath clusters of trees clutching muddied wicker baskets, traipsing nonchalantly through ditches and generally doing their best to look inconspicuous. One of the distinctive traits of the wild mushroom is that they tend to colonise the same area year after year, and the secret locations of these are passed from generation to generation by those that collect them. Top tip then: once you’ve got your special patch of rovellons, don’t give it up.
A less competitive kind of sport can be enjoyed at the annual Mercat del Bolet de Guardiola de Berguedà. Think of it as Catalunya’s equivalent to the truffle market of Alba, albeit considerably less expensive, where pickers, sellers and buyers trade a variety of mushrooms from €8 to €30 a kilo. The market takes place daily from 1st September through 30th November and includes competitions, tastings and cooking courses as well as the usual communal feasting typical of Spanish festivals.
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'Shrooms!
Posted by Alecia October 26, 2011 16:48:16