"Aller aux champignons"

Colorful expression, aller aux champignons. More on that in an upcoming French mini lesson. Today the topic at hand is mushrooms, specifically the glorious September-October hunt for cèpes in the Cévennes mountains.

When I was a little kid in New England, I thought mushrooms only came in one form -- canned. I'd certainly never heard of a cèpe. Although I must have known a priori that mushrooms existed in some pre-canned world, my limited childhood experiences told me that mushrooms were tiny white buttons purchased in cans and sometimes jars at the local A&P grocery store, to be subsequently served on my parents' rare steaks. Understand "rare" as "infrequent." Like many Americans and to the horror of most French, my parents ate their steak any way but rare.

Moving into the high school years, I learned from a Dr. Kildare episode (or was it Ben Casey) that one could die, and painfully so, from eating home-canned mushrooms. Kildare inspired more than a few teenage fantasies of a romantic bent on my part. My long-term paranoia over botulism was directly linked to that specific episode.

As a young adult, I had another vicarious mushroom experience. Not the drug-induced sort, although mildly illegal activity was indeed involved. My new husband and I, poor students sorely in need of a Saturday night out, sneaked over the back fence of a drive-in movie theater. From a cold damp seat on the ground, way in the back and huddled under blankets we had smuggled in with us, our senses heightened by the rush of our daring act, we thoroughly enjoyed Clint Eastwood's The Beguiled. It's one of his under-appreciated films, in which he's taken down not by flying bullets, but by mushrooms ... deadly poisonous mushrooms.

Years later, I had my first experience eating mushrooms of the non-commercial kind. I was on a day trip with friends in Bretagne visiting the countryside home of their elderly parents. The weather was unseasonably warm and so we decided to take a walk after lunch. On our way back to the house, my friends' parents declared that it was exactly the type of fall weather that produced an abundance of mushrooms -- in their yard. And indeed there were many that had apparently sprung up overnight. The four of them set to gathering them up with what seemed to me an exaggerated excitement. That night at the supper table, my skepticism matched their enthusiasm as we prepared to feast on the first of the season's wild mushroom omelets, accompanied by dandelion greens also gleaned from the yard. I admit that my appreciation of the repast did not manifest itself until the following morning when I awoke, with relief, in a perfectly normal state of health.

Since that Sunday in Bretagne so long ago, I've met many wild mushroom aficionados from around the world. Their stories and the relish with which they told them certainly piqued my curiosity. Nonetheless, when Henri invited us to go mushroom hunting with him this past fall, I didn't exactly react with a carpe diem.

It wasn't the prospect of having to get up before sunrise that deterred me, nor the possible botulism that might grow in our future jars of mushrooms. Neither was it a fear of eating the mushrooms we would find; I trusted Jean-Paul's and Henri's knowledge of which were edible and which provoked Clint Eastwood contortions. What gave me pause was something entirely different. In addition to Kildare and Eastwood, my younger years had been sprinkled with Walt Disney movies. Remember those wild boars in Old Yeller? They're called sangliers in French. They live in the Cévennes (among other places), where those folks not out mushroom hunting in the fall are out hunting sangliers. Occasionally the two worlds collide.

I studied the pros and cons of the impending adventure. When we climbed into bed the night before the big day, I still hadn't made up my mind, although I was definitely leaning towards sleeping in. However when the alarm went off the next morning, I knew I'd regret not going, so got up, dressed warmly, then gulped down some coffee by way of breakfast. Pushing a knife into the front pocket of my jeans, I grabbed the basket Jean-Paul had set out for me "just in case," then joined him where he was waiting out front with a very dapper-looking Henri. In contrast to the jeans, windbreakers and boots Jean-Paul and I had donned, Henri was sporting a pair of wide-wale corduroy trousers, an old tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, and dark brown oxfords. Lisa, Henri's wife, waved from an upstairs window as we backed out of the yard in Henri's old beater car, headed for a prime cèpe hunting spot.

Ten minutes later we were in the mountains. It was still dark when we parked at the end of a narrow road, not far from a river. Together we headed uphill into the chestnut trees, crossing the river along the way. Jean-Paul and Henri immediately spotted several large, juicy cèpes, real beauties that suggested the morning would be a rewarding one. They showed me what to look for and also pointed out a few types of mushrooms that were poisonous even to the touch. Nature is a tricky witch: the most beautiful mushrooms can also be the most deadly; some of them look just like those big red spotted ones in Disney's Snow White. They practically beg you to caress them. Don't. They may not kill you, but their poison will enter through your skin and make you darn sick.

There are also mushrooms that do a great impression of the edible cèpe, except for the underbelly: theirs is ribbed, the cèpes is smooth. For a good hour or so at least, my mushroom hunting talents seemed to be limited to finding nothing but these ostensibly omnipresent frauds.

For awhile we all stayed in a group, soon however each ventured off on our own personal quest. Henri amazed me: at 80 years old, cane in one hand, basket in the other, he was having the time of his life. The cane, by the way, was not for support, but rather for checking the underside of the mushrooms he came across. He had grown up here and knew every inch of the terrain by heart. Later on when we met up again at the top of the peak, he told us stories about gathering chestnuts as a child with his father, then about the French resistance fighters who had hid out in these hills from the Nazi soldiers during World War II.

We moved back down the slope in another direction to the family's cled, a tile-roofed hut used for centuries to prepare the gathered chestnuts for future sundry and creative uses. It's in ruins now, the roof and walls caving in. Jean-Paul set his basket down and began to explore the area. He has a PhD in plant biology, so I wasn't surprised when he stooped down to gently stroke the moss covering the ground next to the cled. Suddenly he laughed gleefully and called to Henri and me to come quickly. He had found the most beautiful cèpes of the morning, so young that their firm heads had not yet peeked through the moss. Henri and I began to pat the ground, too, hoping to share the luck. Disappointingly, I didn't find a single one and meandered off to search other promising spots.

About an hour later, Henri announced that Lisa was expecting him for lunch, so he was going to head back to the car where he'd wait for us. He explained the trail that would lead us to where we could safely cross the river, cautioning us that the ground was covered thickly with fallen leaves hiding potentially dangerous rocks and crevices. Nonetheless Jean-Paul was bounding about like a gazelle, occasionally losing his footing in his enthusiasm to gather as many cèpes as possible in the little time remaining. I was wearing old boots with slippery soles, so moved down the hill less sure-footedly. (This may not be the only reason.)

Following Henri's trail, or so we thought, we continued our descent towards the river. When it was finally in sight, however, it was clear that mushroom fever had led us astray. Were we to cross the river at that point, our baskets of precious mushrooms would be lost in the churning current, with us not far behind. We decided to climb up to a crest to get our bearings and happily found a different trail that led us -- more or less safely -- back to where Henri was waiting. We heard him calling out to us long before we saw him. His concerned look quickly vanished when he saw our smiling faces. On our way home, I noticed that Jean-Paul and Henri were grilling the roadside for any mushrooms they could add to our already bulging baskets.

After a much-savored lunch of garlic-laced sauteed mushrooms, red wine, bread and cheese, we spent the rest of the day sorting, weighing, cleaning, cutting, cooking, and bottling until the wee hours of the morning. There were mushrooms everywhere: in already processed jars, in jars waiting for the canner; there were mushrooms drying on wire mesh pallets lining the floors of the living room, office, and hallway; they were on the front steps and covered the picnic tables in the back garden. When we fell into bed entirely spent, the whole house and its perimeter were saturated with the heavenly, earthy perfume of cèpes... as were we.

Post scriptum: Hunting for mushrooms is a delight in itself; consuming your finds is equally satisfying. Here's one of my favorite recipes for a mushroom sauce to be served over steaming hot polenta. [Polenta with sausage is a traditional dish of the Cévennes -- the following recipe is delicious with a bit of sausage tossed in at the end.]

Wild Mushroom Sauce
1 1/2 ounces dried mushrooms
1 cup very hot water
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup chopped or thinly sliced onion
1/2 cup dry Marsala (sweet is good, too)
1/2 cup dry white wine (or chicken broth, as you prefer)
1 teaspoon fresh, chopped rosemary
1 cups chicken stock
1 cup beef stock
1 tablespoon butter (room temperature)
1 tablespoon flour

Rinse the mushrooms, then soak in hot water to reconstitute (30-60 minutes). Remove them from the liquid, squeezing excess moisture back into the bowl. Set both mushrooms and liquid aside in separate bowls.

Heat the oil, add the onion and garlic and cook over medium heat till tender and slightly brown (10-15 minutes). Stir frequently. Add Marsala and white wine, increase heat. Boil till nearly all the liquid evaporates (5-8 minutes). Add the mushrooms, mushroom liquid (strained), and the two stocks (you can use chicken stock only, omitting the beef; the flavor of the sauce will be different, but still good). Boil until the liquid is reduced to 2 cups.

Meanwhile, if you want to add sausage to the sauce: brown either whole sausages or slices in a bit of olive oil or butter. Deglaze the pan with a small amount of wine. You'll add this to the sauce just before serving. [I use low-fat, low-salt chicken-basil sausages.]

Whisk the flour and butter together, then mix it into the sauce, stirring constantly over lowered heat until sauce thickens. Add the sausage if you're using it, then serve over hot polenta (coarse is the best for this dish).
Bon appétit!