Truffles…shiitakes…morels – mushrooms conjure visions of one of the most intriguing and subtle of all comestibles. The average cook can be mystified by how best to prepare these gastronomic treats, while epicures hunger for new ways to expand their repertoires. Jane Grigson presents more than 250 mushroom recipes – from simple to highly sophisticated – for soups, sauces, stuffings, main courses, and more that will satisfy the curiosity and appetites of mushroom dabblers and diehards alike. Included are helpful tips for selecting and preserving the best edible mushrooms (both wild and cultivated), the folklore behind the recipes, a brief history of mushroom cultivation, guides to distinguish edible from poisonous fungi for those who venture to pick their own, and charming line drawings of the twenty-one most common species. While poet W. H. Auden immortalized “dear Jane Grigson” in The Entertainment of the Senses, Grigson, an artiest in her trade, is best known for her own wonderful books on food. The Mushroom Feast is an indispensable classic for all those who love mushrooms as much as this rare find: a fine, timeless, literary cookbook. (6 X 9, 352 pages, illustrations)
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
With more than 250 recipes, Jane Grigson describes the preparation of the best fresh and preserved mushrooms (think lowfat). Besides the traditional use of mushrooms to enhance meat and vegetable dishes, edible fungi may be cooked in vine leaves, made into pâté, powdered, puréed into mushroom ketchup, baked into a flan (an Alice B. Toklas specialty), baked as a cake with cream sauce, and used in many other dishes that are too intriguing to resist. Grigson also explains the differences between good and poisonous mushrooms, relates some folk stories behind the recipes, and gives a history of mushroom cultivation that doesn't leave you in the dark about friendly fungi.
Review
"'When all's said and written, there's nothing better than field mushrooms that you have gathered yourself, on toast, for breakfast.' Jane Grigson, The Mushroom Feast"
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fine introduction to "la cuisine de champignons sauvages",
By Peter G. Werner "hey, its just my opinion" (Sausalito, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Mushroom Feast: A Celebration of All Edible Fungi With Over 250 Receipes (Paperback)
A collection of French wild mushroom recipes by British cooking writer Jane Grigson. This book is an excellent source of recipes and inspiration for the use of wild mushrooms, for chefs and experienced home cooks alike. The book has over 200 recipes for wild and domesticated mushrooms of all kinds, both as a main part of the dish and as an accompaniment to meat, fish, and fowl. Particularly useful is a section at the beginning covering some 20 species of mushrooms, describing the unique culinary properties of each and listing the recipes that would suit them best. I particularly like the fact that this book covers not only the "usual suspects", that is, cultivated agaricus, porcini, chanterelles, morels, truffles, etc, but also covers less well-known wild mushrooms like fairy-ring mushrooms, blewitts, grisettes, russulas, etc.The recipes in "The Mushroom Feast" bear the unmistakable stamp of pre-nouvelle French haute-cuisine (though the book also has a whole chapter of Asian-inspired recipes as well). This has its good and bad sides - good in the sense that the mushrooms are used in in the context of tasty "gourmet" European cooking that I find does justice to the intense flavor of wild mushrooms, but not so good in the sense that it often calls for sauces that are richer in butter, cream, and roux than they need to be. However, with a basic knowledge of sauce-making technique, one can easily turn these into simple reduction sauces that don't overpower the rest of the ingredients. Some of the editorial reviews mention that this book is a useful guide to distinguish edible and poisonous mushrooms. This book is not, in fact, useful as a field guide and inexperienced persons who go out and gather mushrooms for the table using this book as their only guide do so at their peril! If you are going to be cooking with the mushrooms in this book, one first needs to get some experience in identification of wild mushrooms, or stick with the wild mushrooms you can buy from your local gourmet grocery or farmers' market. All in all, this is a book that belongs on the shelf of anybody who likes to cook with wild mushrooms.
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