The best mushrooms to say goodbye to summer

• The secrets of 'bouchot', that tiny and delicious French mussel
• Where to eat the best sardines this summer
• Why hunting is also for summer

We finish this week our tour of the products, dishes and traditions that enchant the gastronomic in summer, and we do it with a theme that, programmed at the beginning of the road, for a month and a half has had us in suspense: the arrival of the first mushrooms of the Autumn , which traditionally occurs when it is still summer. And it is that the traditions resist badly to the climatic change, and the brutal and continuous drought with high temperatures during the months of July and August made us doubt a lot: Will there be wild mushrooms before the end of the summer, or even after?

And then we got the thromes of water - and hail, as in Arganda del Rey or Villarrobledo - on August 26 and we wondered if they will be enough to rescue the production of mushrooms and autumnal mushrooms in many parts of Spain. Everything is still in the air, but hopefully those waters are for good, and that the autumn wild mushrooms that we end up seeing in our supermarkets are not only, as has happened in some of the past years, product of remote countries of Eastern Europe.

It will not be immediate, but we remember that veteran mushroom pickers in the Madrid mountains told us that if there is no water in August we will have very few níscalos in October and November, so these floods can come in handy. The níscalo, Lactarius deliciosus , or its cousin of more purple color - and finer flavor - the Lactarius sanguifluus , are typical mushrooms of southern Europe, fleshy and substantial although not terribly delicate in flavor, which we enjoy perhaps more because In our forests abound and other mushrooms more typical of fresh and humid climates are scarce here.

But already the month of September that comes can surprise us with some of the most delicate, tasty and precious species of fungi, which we would not expect to see so early in the shelves of our markets: this is the case of the fine oronja , the Amanita caesarea or Amanita de los Césares, that from places like the Monfragüe national park in Cáceres we have come to see, some years, in mid-September in Madrid fruit shops.

And then, of course, we have the Boletus family, which has its summer branches such as Boletus aestivalis, Boletus pinicola or Boletus aereus , as tasty as the best Boletus edulis , and in areas of the north and west of the peninsula we hope to see them soon this year.

The cold drop of day 26 can also favor the early appearance of another southern mushroom that, in that case, can compete in finesse and flavor with the chanterelles and the northernmost fungi, our mesetary thistle mushroom , Pleurotus eryngii : not to be confused with its cultivated versions, and even less with the enough shell mushroom or Pleurotus ostreatus . (Several packers of cultivated mushrooms are not collected at the time of proclaiming on their labels the shell mushroom as "thistle", before the habitual inaction of the competent official agencies of consumer defense).

The cast of early autumn mushrooms, if things go well, can be completed with the fine and at the same time substantial chanterelle (which the French- speaking shift call chantarela ), the Cantharellus cibarius , which occurs well in several areas of the peninsula. And, in all the Southwest, the fleshy gurumelo ( Amanita ponderosa ), which has the advantage, like its noble relative the oronja , of not being able to be confused with its mortal cousin, the Amanita phalloides , whose green and white colors should alert us and move us away immediately .

So, from the middle of next month, be attentive to their markets and fruit shops ... and to the restaurants specializing in mushrooms, which are not many - except in the two most microphile areas of Spain, Catalonia and the Basque Country - but What should be known.

In the first division setera area, none better than that Soriana mecca that is La Lobita , with its Michelin star and everything (Avenida de la Constitución, 54, tel. 975 37 43 68, Navaleno, Soria). And the Soriano DNA flows equally in the Madrid kitchen of María Luisa (Jorge Juan, 42, tel. 91 781 01 80). In the capital there are not many top-level addresses for microphiles and microphages, and more after the closure of El Bosque , which arrived with great ambitions. But there are some of the first level, starting with that tiny bar that dazzled us all and now has a neighboring and wider branch, The Blue Swan (Gravina, 19 and Gravina, 27, tel. 91 112 90 80). The exemplary neighborhood bar that is El Imperio (Galileo, 51, tel. 91 549 51 71) is maintained, and that Mushroom Guadiana, originally from Cuenca, that is El Brote has returned: its new reincarnation is on Calle de la Ruda, 14 (tel. 652 17 33 19), and we celebrate his return after having followed him through several places in Madrid. Worth.

In the Basque Country the offer is very extensive, and we could include in it almost the entire cast of restaurants in the area, but go two nice directions as they are one of the temples of the skewers in San Sebastián, Ganbara (San Jerónimo, 19, tel. 943 42 25 75) or the Kabia de Zumárraga (Legazpi, 5, tel. 943 72 62 74).

The Catalan offer is almost as numerous, but at least here we point out two particularly prominent points in Barcelona, Sergi de Meià (Aribau, 106, tel. 93 125 57 10) and the irreplaceable Bar-Bodega Bartolí (Vallespir, 41, tel. 93 339 10 21).

And don't forget: mushrooms are never very easy to digest. So enjoy them with moderation, which is not a matter of having a bad time after having a good time.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• The Gourmet
• Gastronomy

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