There is a big mushroom festival on, and there's lots to do. Youngest and I went and found these mushrooms, one was edible according to the mycologist in charge....
Then both girls and I found these. One of the amazing things about all this is the passion that all the local people feel about it, they saw us wandering out of the hills with our mushrooms and would hurry over to see what we had found....all giving us advice usually contradictory, about which we could eat, and which not....
Having cute kids is an advantage, when we brought the second batch in to get checked the guy in charge offered the girls a trade, our whole basket for one we could eat. The girls said yes, and while we stood around admiring things, more and more mushrooms kept appearing in our basket. Mmmmmmm......
The gathered mushrooms were made into this display, some of the mushrooms that we found were featured, which was pretty cool in fact....
And then there was a mushroom tasting. This is what we had and it was GOOD.
We still had the mass of the mushrooms at home, so a couple of friends came back to our place, we made fried mushrooms, mushroom risotto, curried squash soup and chocolate cookies. We stayed up very late and ate very well....
The next day the fair opened even better goodies awaited us, like this stand of mushrooms,
This wheel of cheese was positively enormous...and I am sure delicious.
An olive stand.....
Bread was everywhere....
This makes me so hungry...
Another cheese stand....
More mushrooms, have I mentioned that these people LOVE food?
The basket weavers were out in strength....you can ONLY collect mushrooms in a basket I am told.
One of the local masias was open, these are old fortified farm houses...only the cellars were open but it was still fascinating....they made wine up until the civil war when we don't know which side came in, removed all the bungs and let the wine run out into the streets. They haven't made it since. I love this giant barrel with the wooden staves...
This fellow is the spout to the fountain in the cellar.....drinking demon piss....
Did you notice his equipment? Hard to miss....this fellow was down there as well....
I took a massive number of photos, but I think that this will do for now.....It's been fun bringing you with me.
5 comments:
Those pictures make you hungry?? You were there! You could indulge.
I just finished a crummy bowl of North American cereal.
Sounds like (yet another) great festival!
Wow... everything looks so yummy! Though Albanians love olives they really haven't caught onto mushrooms yet. Kind of surprising considering how close we are to Croatia- home of the truffle!
Gret pics...yes I think we MIGHT get out of here tomorrow...
MORE PICS PLEASE!!!
Your pictures are always so lovely!
Our village has a lot of mushrooms (in the fields and woods) and people always go collecting. There's only one variety that we get, but I think there are some others that are edible around, too. I'm going easy this year, though, because of the pregnancy. I know that even under normal circumstances you shouldn't eat too many wild mushrooms, because even the edible kind can be hard on the liver. They are so good, though!
Beth: Sorry, but they do make me hungry, even when I have just indulged...
Kim: I am surprised they haven't caught onto the mushrooms, it always struck me as one of those free foods in hard times kind of things....
Nomad: Hope you make it out soom....
Kate: Thank you about the pictures....there are almost certainly more kinds...I have to confess if I was pregnant I would not be partaking, just in case.....they are good good good....we got more today too!
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