Part 6 (1/2)
_Agarics delicately Stewed._--Remove the stalks and scales from young half-grown agarics, and throw each one as you do so into a basin of fresh water slightly acidulated with the juice of a lemon, or a little good vinegar. When all are prepared, remove them from the water, and put them into a stew-pan with a very small piece of fresh b.u.t.ter.
Sprinkle with white pepper and salt, and add a little lemon-juice; cover up closely, and stew for half an hour. Then add a spoonful of flour, with sufficient cream, or cream and milk, until the whole has the thickness of cream. Season to taste, and stew again gently until the agarics are perfectly tender. Remove all the b.u.t.ter from the surface, and serve in a hot dish, garnished with slices of lemon.
A little mace, nutmeg, or ketchup may be added; but there are those who think that spice spoils the mushroom flavour.
_Cottager's Procerus Pie._--Cut fresh agarics in small pieces, and cover the bottom of a pie-dish. Pepper, salt, and place them on small shreds of fresh bacon, then put in a layer of mashed potatoes, and so fill the dish, layer by layer, with a cover of mashed potatoes for the crust.
Bake well for half an hour, and brown before a quick fire.
_A la Provencale._--”Steep for two hours in some salt, pepper, and a little garlic; then toss in a small stew-pan over a brisk fire, with parsley chopped, and a little lemon-juice.”--_Dr. Badham._
_Agaric Ketchup._--Place agarics of as large a size as you can procure, but which are not worm-eaten, layer by layer, in a deep pan, sprinkling each layer as it is put in with a little salt. The next day stir them well up several times, so as to mash and extract their juice. On the third day strain off the liquor, measure, and boil for ten minutes, and then to every pint of the liquor add half an ounce of black pepper, a quarter of an ounce of bruised ginger-root, a blade of mace, a clove or two, and a tea-spoonful of mustard-seed. Boil again for half an hour; put in two or three bay leaves, and set aside till quite cold. Pa.s.s through a strainer, and bottle; cork well, and dip the ends in resin. A very little Chili vinegar is an improvement, and some add a gla.s.s of port wine, or a gla.s.s of strong ale to every bottle.
Care should be taken that the spice is not added so abundantly as to overpower the true flavour of the agaric. A careful cook will keep back a little of the simple boiled liquor to guard against this danger: a good one will always avoid it. ”Doctors weigh their things,” said a capital cook, ”but I go by taste.” But then, like poets, good cooks of this order must be born so; they are not to be made.
_Coprinus comatus_ (the Maned Agaric).
_Pileus_ cylindrical, obtuse, campanulate, fleshy in the centre, but very thin towards the margin. The external surface soon torn up into fleecy scales, with the exception of a cap at the top. _Gills_ free, linear, and crowded. Quite white when young, becoming rose-coloured, sepia, and then black, from the margin upwards. They then expand quickly, curl up in shreds, and deliquesce into a black inky fluid which stains the ground. _Stem_ of a pure white, four to five inches high, contracting at the top, and bulbous at the base; hollow, fibrillose, stuffed with a light cottony web. The bulb is solid and rooting, the ring is movable.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 32. _Coprinus comatus_ (Maned Mushroom). Pastures, parks, and roadsides, summer and autumn; colour, snow-white; height, 5 to 12 inches.]
This very elegant agaric has also been called _Ag. cylindricus_, Schff; _Ag. typhoides_, Bull; and _Ag. fimetarius_, Bolt. It is common throughout the summer and autumn months, on road-sides, pastures, and waste places. It is extremely variable in size. Its general appearance is so distinct and striking, that it cannot possibly be mistaken for any other agaric. It grows so abundantly on waste ground in the dwellings and farm-yards that it may be, says Dr. Bull, called the ”agaric of civilization;” and for both these reasons it is most valuable as an edible agaric. If its merits were known, it would be eaten as freely as the common field mushroom.
”The maned mushrooms,” Miss Plues has well said, ”grow in dense cl.u.s.ters, each young plant like an attenuated egg, white and smooth.
Presently some exceed the others in rapidity of growth, and their heads get above the ground, the stem elongates rapidly, the ring falls loosely round the stem, the margin of the pileus enlarges, and the oval head a.s.sumes a bell-shape; then a faint tint of brown spreads universally or in blotches over the upper part of the pileus, and the whiteness of its gills changes to a dull pink. A few more hours and the even head of the pileus has split in a dozen places, the sections curl back, melt out of all form into an inky fluid, and on the morrow's dawn a black stain on the ground will be all that remains. And so on with the others in succession.”
_Opinions on the Merits of Coprinus comatus as an Edible Fungus._--”Esculent when young.”--_Berkeley._
”Young specimens should be selected.”--_Badham._
”No despicable dish, though perhaps not quite equal to the common mushroom.”--_M. C. Cooke._
”If I had my choice, I think there is no species I should prefer before this one: it is singularly rich, tender, and delicious.”--_Worthington G. Smith._
Dr. M'Cullough, Dr. Chapman, Elmes Y. Steele, Esq., and some other members of the Woolhope Club, hold Mr. W. G. Smith's opinion as the result of considerable experience. It must be noted, however, that when too young this agaric is rather deficient in flavour, and its fibres tenacious. Its flavour is most rich, and its texture most delicate when the gills show the pink colour with sepia margins.
_Modes of Cooking the Coprinus comatus._--The best and simplest method is to broil it and serve on toast in the ordinary way. It may be added also with great advantage to steaks and made-dishes, to give flavour and gravy.
_Comatus Soup._--Take two quarts of white stock, and put in a large plateful of the maned agaric roughly broken out; stew until tender; pulp through a fine sieve; add pepper and salt to taste; boil and serve up hot. Two or three table-spoonfuls of cream will be a great improvement.
The agarics for this soup should be young, in order to keep its colour light and good. The maned agaric is recommended on all sides for making ketchup, but here, also, it should be quickly used, and the ketchup quickly made.
_Agaricus gambosus_ (the True St. George's Mushroom).
_Pileus_ thick and fleshy, convex at first, often lobed, becoming undulated and irregular, expanding unequally; the margin more or less involute, and at first flocculose; from three to four inches across; of a light yellow colour in the centre, fading to almost opaque white at the edges; it is soft to the touch; more or less tuberculated, and often presenting cracks. _Gills_ yellowish-white, watery, narrow, marginate, annexed to the stem with a little tooth: they are very numerous and irregular, with many smaller ones interposed, ”lying over each other like the plaits of a frill” (from 5 to 11, Vittadini). _Stem_ firm, solid and white, swelling at the base in young specimens; but in older ones, though usually bulging, they are frequently of even size, and when in long gra.s.s they occasionally even taper downwards. This agaric is usually nearly white, smooth, soft, and firm, like kid leather to the touch, and, as Berkeley has happily said, ”in appearance it very closely resembles a cracknel biscuit.”
They grow in rings; have a strong smell, and appear about St. George's Day (April 23), after the rains which usually fall about the third week in April. They continue to appear for three or four weeks, according to the peculiarities of the season. They are usually to be found on hilly pastures in woodland districts.
The St. George's mushroom cannot well be mistaken for any other. The fact of its appearance at this early season, and growing so freely in rings, when so very few other funguses are to be found, is almost enough to distinguish it. It has, however, very distinctive characters in itself in the thickness of its pileus; the narrowness of its gills, which are very closely crowded together; and the solid bulging stem.