Cepes ?????????????

[Megan le Fey]

Hi everybody

When I am looking for help on mushrooms where else would I be going for informed and expert advice, even tho'I no longer live in France?[8-|]

Walking the dogs a couple of days ago, I found these mushrooms which I think are ceps but I am not quite confident enough to wreck my diet for a day, fry up in butter the bits not eaten by wild Welsh creatures and scoff the lot in an omlette or something. The biggest one weighs 175 grams, is 13cms across and the top was really slimy but it was a wet day.  I have googled around a bit but don't find a site which compares good bolet types and the bad but they look pretty much like the ones I have seen on sale in Auchan or LeClerc.  Here are the pics:  http://s60.photobucket.com/albums/h15/miggimeggi/Ceps%20in%20Wales/?action=view&current=IMGP0470.jpg and http://s60.photobucket.com/albums/h15/miggimeggi/Ceps%20in%20Wales/?action=view&current=IMGP0472.jpg  . I should have taken them in situ, I know but it was chucking it down and the water was running down the back of my neck.  The dogs were revelling in it but all I wanted was to get home and dry.  We were in Mid-Wales Forestry Commission, deep, tall pine forest, ground moss covered and lots of other, interesting looking mushrooms but left them for another (drier) day.  What does anyone think, dare I have that omlette for dinner tonight?

[andyh4]

Hard to say from just the picture.  Cut one open with a knife.  Note the colour and then report back if the colour has changed after half an hour.

[Patf]

I've got a booklet on mushrooms which the pharmacist gave me. It could be a cepe, or a bolet. Is the flesh as yellow as it seems in the picture?

Don't eat it yet! Are there any experts in your home area?

[Megan le Fey]

Hi Andy

Hard to say if the colour has changed.  It is a sort of yellowish khaki colour and doesn't seem to have changed but may have a bit of a bruised look - of course, it is a couple of days old now.  The smaller one has certainly had it - most was eaten anyway.

Pat, if it doesn't get delivered by Asda they wouldn't know.  I remember taking a sort of bolet to a pharmacy when I was in France.  It had that tubular look instead of gills like a bolet but the stem was slim and straight and the cap was more flat.  They told me that it wouldn't kill me, just make me a bit sick.  This one definitely has that thick bulbous stem that one associates with ceps and the cap is well domed. 

I guess I had better pass on that omlette today but I would really like to know for sure, after all, if they are ceps, I now know where they are and as far as I know, nobody else here even knows what a cep is[6].

[Clarkkent]

Hi Anne

Does this help?

http://mushroom-collecting.com/mushroomking.html

[Megan le Fey]

[quote user="Clarkkent"]

Hi Anne

Does this help?

http://mushroom-collecting.com/mushroomking.html

[/quote]

Hi Clarkkent,

Yes, it does indeed help.  I think that, despite the darkening of the colour when I cut the cap,  the mushrooms I found seems to match in every respect  rather mature specimens of the King Bolet(e) described on the link you sent, including the habitat in which it was growing, the conifer forest, the thick moss underfoot, wet day, greasy/slimey cap.  Yellowish underside when I took the pics yesterday and pea soup green today .................. and so on.   However, the omlette will have to wait for another day.  I suddenly remembered that I still had a largish portion of  last nights chicken stir-fry in the fridge and it would go to waste if I didn't eat it tonight so I binned the bolet.  Absolutely nothing to do with the maggots I found crawling on the worktop after I had cut it in half.[:D][:D]

[Tancrède]

I was rather surprised and pleased to take in 12 kilos of cèpes as early as 25th July this year.  They should be be very definitely domed, even when quite large.  They do flatten out eventually, but that is only when they are huge and too old to be useful.  No gills, but a mousse-like appearance underneath, pale to begin with but which ages with a faintly greenish tint.  The stems are characteristically thick, strong, and bulbous  -  they are not narrow, or spindly, or parallel sided.  The whole thing should feel stout, 'woody' and solid, and not remotely spindly or flabby.  They are not at all slimey.  There should be no kind of 'sac' around the base.  They look characteristically like the 'Penny Bun' of its English name  -  a pleasing mattish, slightly overcooked dinner roll colour.  No part of it should be red.  

And finally they are, of course, Perfectly Delicious  -  and much better dried than fresh.

PS.  Whoops, I omitted an important indicator :   They do not bruise or discolour in response to mechanical damage or cutting.