Walk on the wild side with mushrooms

LAST week, we received a packet of sliced, dried culinary mushrooms from a Czech girl we know.

Her father had picked them in the forest only days before, and had dried them on a sieve.

They are Ceps, all of them, Boletus Edulis, king of culinary mushrooms, the fat, brown-capped, thick-trunked forest giants with the spongy undercarriage. The Germans call them Steinpilz because, I suppose, they look like smooth, brown stones. They will be delicious, reconstituted in water and used in almost any dish where fresh mushrooms are used. A few days later, a man from Bermuda kindly gave me a single Irish Cep which he’d found in a forest near Bantry. There wasn’t a worm in it and it was delicious, fried in olive oil with a little garlic and laid on toast. We are unfortunate in Ireland that edible forest mushrooms and especially the classic Ceps are rare as hen’s teeth over much of the country. There’s nothing like the abundance that I’ve found in the English Home Counties, in Wales, in the Canary Islands and in Bulgaria. Bulgaria was a huge surprise. Two years ago, my brother and I drove to the extreme south where a small river divides Bulgaria from Turkey.

For miles, we drove through forest, and once we stopped and found mushrooms all around us including huge and perfect Ceps, a bucketful to be harvested in half an hour. I took some back to my hotel room, sliced them and dried them over the radiator. While the development we saw along the Black Sea coast was largely, but not all, poor quality, high-rise apartment blocks reminding me of 1960s Spain — they demolished most of these Costa monstrosities in the ’80s — it was a wonderful surprise to find ourselves only a few hundred yards from the sea but passing through endless tunnels and corridors of trees and roads dappled in sunlight.

The Strandja National Park, as it’s called, is the largest protected area in Bulgaria, a vast, ancient forest covering a thousand square kilometres of gentle hills along the Veleka River valley. The maritime location means the winters are relatively short and warm, and coastal mists or light rain makes the landscape rich and green in contrast to the parched resort areas further up the coast. Paradoxically, however, the Strandja region has the highest number of sunny days annually in Bulgaria. While communism reigned, the only development allowed in the park was a few dozen wooden shacks provided for member of the Artists, Writers and Musicians Trade Unions for annual holidays; at the time, the entire staff of factories or unions would holiday together in their allotted places at their allotted time. As soon as the communists were ousted, the park and its unique ecosystems immediately came under serious threat from developers. Large areas on the coastal woodland would have suffered the onslaught of get-rich-quick-builders but for the efforts of the parks officials.

They bravely stood alone, vilified by developers and enjoying little support from national or provincial authorities. Now, however, they are vindicated, and conservation of the park enjoys full support both nationally and from the EU.

In consultation with the parks management, it is agreed that sensitive, ecologically-responsible development will be allowed, on condition is that it integrates with the landscape and the local hamlets which are typically picturesque. It is good news to learn that an Irish company, Cygnum Ltd of Macroom, has had its designs approved and has been contracted to build energy-efficient houses in the park for an Irish-Bulgarian company, Hi-Tec-Homes.com.

Given the slowdown here, it is heartening to know that one of the many Irish firms that developed expertise in sustainable building during our late-lamented boom may now be able to export its talents.

We can, therefore, hope the expertise gained during the reign of mother Tiger will go on being nurtured, and will be available to us if and when another — but hopefully less rapacious — Tiger is born.