Porcini Mushrooms Hunting on the Chianti Hills
At a height of 700 metres above sea level, the hills of Chianti are covered with woods of oaks and chestnut and beech trees, which are the ideal habitat for the mushrooms that live in symbiosis with the roots of trees. The most renowned and beloved ones in the Chianti area belong to the genus Boletus, and are commonly known as porcini mushrooms.
There are four types of edible porcini mushrooms:
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Boletus Edulis - it has a sticky, white-brown cap and flowers from July until November! That is right: actually a mushroom is just the flower of a mycelium (that is, the part of the mushroom that envelops the tree`s underground roots);
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Boletus Aereus - it has a grey-black cap and flowers in summer and autumn; chestnut woods are its ideal habitat;
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Boletus Reticulatus - it has a hazel-dark brown cap and flowers from May to the end of the summer;
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Boletus Pinophilus or pine bolete - with its garnet red cap, it is the most common type in the Chianti region; it flowers from late spring until autumn.
The hills of Chianti are rich in porcini mushrooms and harvesting them is a common, healthy and amusing hobby, although in Tuscany there are restrictive rules and regulations to comply with: first of all, you need a harvesting licence, then you have to know that each person can harvest maximum 3 kilograms a day using rigid and airy containers (e.g. a wicker basket) so that spores can spread. For more information, see www.fungocenter.it/normativa-funghi-toscana.php.
Mushrooms have to be picked in the correct way: pulling them out of the ground with a twisting movement after having grabbed them at the end of their stem, without using knives. This way, the mycelium does not get damaged and in the following days many other delicious porcini mushrooms will surely grow in the area.
If you have any doubts on the edibility of the mushrooms you have picked, do not worry: any municipality of the Chianti region organizes a free-of-charge mycological counselling service, that is, a group of experts ready to examine your mushrooms and supply you with all information you need.
At this point, you just have to taste your mushrooms! In Chianti cuisine mushrooms are usually cooked in oil with parsley and garlic and eaten with beef or game. They are also used to prepare delicious risottos and sauces for "pappardelle" (a kind of pasta similar to fettuccine) and "pici" (a kind of fresh pasta similar to thick hand-made spaghetti). They are excellent! You can taste them in almost any restaurant in the Chianti region. Sometimes the owners of the restaurants pick the mushrooms by themselves and cook them fresh!
If you want to take some of them at home, you can purchase a pack of dried porcini mushrooms. As soon as you get home, rehydrate them in some warm water and they will regain their typical aromaticness. Just pay attention to possible frauds: beware of too-low prices and generic labels which do not report their origin.
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