Breda’s family are from Blarney and the grounds of Blarney Castle are ideal for mushrooms, with lots of different tree species growing in wide open grassy spaces.
My brother-in-law’s mother-in-law (pay attention at the back) was telling me a tale from her childhood about gathering field mushroom and then selling them by the side of the road to passing cars. She’s about 80, so it was a few years back, but my brother-in-law agreed with her that the fields in County Cork were once thronged with Field Mushrooms. I don’t think that’s the case now, so has their frequency declined? I’d like to have a look around in the summer to find out.
Few of the mushrooms had much smell, perhaps because of the heavy rain that had been falling. The pick of the bunch was The Prince mushroom, which was very flavoursome. We also consumed some False Saffron Milkcaps which I quite like although others aren’t so keen. Identification of some was difficult as my notes weren’t very good – Niamh was running around finding more and more mushrooms, dragging me away from the one I was looking at.