We’ve had a lovely busy autumn taking people out on forays in Derbyshire and then heading back to West Sweden for the big Winter Chanterelle pick. Coming up on Saturday 4 November is a tasting at the wonderful Epicerie Ludo in Chorlton.

We have so much fun going out with groups, who are always a cheery bunch whatever the Derbyshire weather decides to throw at us. After a gentle wander around the fields and woods we gather around the picnic tables to go over what we’ve found – and what we’ve brought with us in case we don’t find anything – then enjoy a fry up of wild mushrooms and sausages. The home made cake afterwards always goes down a storm as well! We get emails for weeks afterwards with photos of finds our guests want to check with us, and it’s great to know that we’ve both enthused them and given them the confidence to start picking beginner’s mushrooms (ie ones that can’t be mistaken for any other non-edible mushroom) by themselves.

Picking in West Sweden – and simply being home – is always lovely. There’s a mellow peace and quietness in the woods at this time of year, and warm muted colours that help stress levels ebb away. We head out after breakfast to one of our tried and trusted spots, pick for a couple of hours, sometimes companionably in the same place, or away from each other, letting the thoughts meander as we search and pick, then head back for our picnic. Most days we’ll set out again after lunch for another couple of hours before the light goes. When we get home the mushrooms go on the drying racks and are ready the day after to be packed into airtight bags. It’s an autumn activity – and way of life – we highly recommend!

We’re delighted to be co-hosting a foray on Sunday 1 October with Mount Cook Adventure Centre in south Derbyshire. This event will follow the same format as our very popular Hayfield forays, with a roughly two hour walk through nearby fields and woods followed by lunch al fresco of grilled sausages & bread to eat with a fry up of some of the mushrooms we’ve picked, accompanied by hot and cold drinks and home made cake. Book your places with the centre, full details are on the poster below or on their website which you can find via the link above.

Oh it’s so lovely to be back in beautiful West Sweden for our summer hols/mushroom picking trip. When we’re not in the forests we love to spend time by the coast, and this area is a paradise for anyone who loves the outdoors, whether wet or dry. It was great to get a mushroom walk in with family over from the UK, and explore the archipelago.

A highlight this year has been our trip up to Lövånger in Västerbotten on Sweden’s north east coast, to go to the Mushroom Consultant’s AGM (Svampkonsulenternas Riksträff), organised by the local branch Svampkonsulent Norr. It took us two days to drive up and was a round trip of 2,360 km. Sweden is such an incredibly long, narrow country!

It was great to meet up with such a lovely bunch of mushroom experts, and, amongst other activities, we attended a lecture on poisonous mushrooms, went on a foray with local mushroom consultant Anna-Lena Lindqvist, and helped set up a wild mushroom display that members of the public could also come to.

A speciality of northern Sweden is the matsutake mushroom, tricholoma matsutake, which until very recently was not picked at all by Swedes. Discovered to be growing in the region by the Japanese, who prize it very highly, it is now picked mostly to be shipped over there. Many Swedes still find the strong, almost perfumey taste too much. We were delighted to find our very own specimens which we are looking forward to trying in a recipe.

On the final day we were part of a group interviewed by SVT, Sweden’s national television broadcaster, for an item on the local evening news about mushroom consultants, whose mandate is to encourage the public to go foraging safely, and get some exercise in the process, as well as helping to identify wild mushrooms. What a great resource they are for the Swedish nation!

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasterbotten/svamptraff-i-lovanger

We so love what we do. The feeling never diminishes, and every season we feel the same, that it’s a delight and privilege to spend time in forests and fields picking wild mushrooms. It really is a reward in itself. We’re proud of the products we sell, which have genuinely been picked and prepared with love and respect.

So it’s an absolute delight and honour to be chosen as one of the small producers nominated by Women and Home for a Great Taste Awards Golden Fork. Especially when you look at the list, containing so many other committed and enthusiastic producers who are also clearly genuine food lovers like us. It’s a public vote, so we hope you’ll try as many of the products as you can get your hands on to help you make your choice. There’s a full list of our stockists around the country on this website if you haven’t already tried Get Funghi mushrooms.

The list of producers, and a link to vote for your chosen one, can be found via the link below. We wish all the others the best of luck!

http://www.womanandhome.com/recipes/541977/great-taste-awards-voting

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Some delis are tiny but fully formed. This is certainly the case with our stockist No 74 Delicatessen in Bollington, Cheshire. They’ve got a great selection of deli and other products sourced as locally as possible, and a really popular cafe serving delicious home made lunch dishes and cakes.

We’re looking forward to our first tasting there on Saturday 17 June. We’ll be giving out freshly made wild mushroom toasties for you to try from 11-2 , and as always we’ll have a selection of lovely recipe cards for you to pick up.

We’re delighted to welcome two new stockists to our Get Funghi family. You’ll now be able to buy our dried Porcini and Winter Chanterelle in the farm shop at Frensham Garden Centre in Surrey, and at No. 74 Delicatessen in Bollington, Cheshire.  We’re sure to be doing tastings in both shops at some point so we’ll keep you updated.

In the meantime we’ll be serving our trademark delicious Winter Chanterelle toasties for you to try at 8th Day Coop in Manchester, on Tuesday 21 March from 11-2, and Barbakan delicatessen in Chorlton, south Manchester on Saturday April 22, again from 11-2.

Happy New Year!  2016 was a roller coaster of a year and not just for us, but the one constant we enjoyed as much as we always do was the mushroom season and all that that brings with it. We get so much out of both the forays and the picking, the former sociable events where we get to meet so many interesting and lovely people in the beautiful Peak District, and the latter a more solitary exercise where we spend quiet, contemplative quality time with each other, in the most stunning natural surroundings, in West Sweden.

We’re looking forward to more of all that this year, and of course more of our popular wild mushroom tastings at our stockists up and down the country.

The dates for our forays this year are Sunday 10 & Sunday 24 September, and Saturday 7 October. We were really pleased they got tipped as one of the top 8 classes in the area, in the excellent Manchester What’s On guide Manchester Wire. There are other mid week dates available, so if you want to book a private foray for up to 10 at another time, do get in touch.

Here’s a gallery of photos from 2016, taken by ourselves and photographer Rob Whitrow.

We’ll be running the cafe at the Made in New Mills Christmas Show once again, on Saturday 26 November. Promoting the work of artists and makers in the High Peak area surrounding our home town of New Mills, Derbyshire, the show is the ideal opportunity to get some truly unique Christmas gifts, all of which are hand made with love.

The Cafe is run with a Swedish flavour, so as well as our popular Get Funghi Wild Mushroom toasties made with hand picked dried winter chanterelles, we’ll be serving Swedish meatball muffins, traditional mulled wine and Christmas biscuits.

The show takes place in Providence Hall on Mellor Rd (SK22 4DP)  in New Mills, on Saturday 26 November from 10 – 3. Stay in town for the Christmas lights switch on, market and street fair from 5pm.

We’ll be doing tastings at the following stores over the coming months, so if you’re in the area, do call in to taste a delicious Winter Chanterelle mushroom toastie, as well as get tips and recipe cards to inspire you to cook with the perfect store cupboard staple, Get Funghi dried wild mushrooms.

8th Day Coop Manchester: Tuesday 18 October 11 – 2

Barbakan Deli Chorlton, South Manchester: Saturday 22 October 11 – 2

Source Food Hall & Cafe St Nicholas Market, Bristol: Saturday 29 October 11 – 2

Low Sizergh Barn, Kendal, Cumbria: Saturday 12 November 11 – 2

Lovely to be back out in the forests of West Sweden for our big cep pick, and signs are that it is going to be a good season here. So far we have picked around 20 kilos of porcini (boletus edulis),and a few kilos of other ceps including scarlatina bolete, slippery jack and velvet bolete to add to our Forest Mix, as well as some chanterelles, hedgehog mushrooms, the miller, and even some fully grown winter chanterelle, very unusual for them to be growing this early over here. That’s the larder started and dinner sorted!

There are still some places available on our Funghi Forays with lunch al fresco in the Peak District on Sunday 11 & 25 September, and 16 October. You’ll find full details on our UK Funghi Forays page. Email us at info@getfunghi.co.uk to book.