I love mushroom foraging in Sheffield

The Star, Sheffield

Everyone loves walking in Sheffield's parks and woods, and I love it especially because it's an amazing city to go mushroom foraging. Here's why I love foraging in Sheffield.

Transcript

00:00I'd like to show you something I love about going for walks in Sheffield.

00:07Yes indeed, today I want to talk to you about mushroom foraging as part of the Stars Love

00:13Your campaign.

00:14I was just going to talk about walking in general in Sheffield but now I want to talk

00:18about mushrooms.

00:19Sheffield is famous for its trees but lots of trees means there are lots of prizes for

00:23mushroom foragers such as myself.

00:25It's a hobby I picked up within weeks of arriving here in 2021 because there are just so many

00:29places to go, just dozens of parks and woodlands I can reach on the bus, I go trooping around

00:33them every autumn.

00:34If you've never been mushroom foraging there's something I'll say for it and that's once

00:38you start you'll find yourself paying that much more attention to what's around you and

00:42once you start spotting these little splashes of colour amongst the leaves or growing out

00:46of trees then it's already too late, you've got the bug, you'll start looking everywhere

00:49for them.

00:50It's an absolute delight learning the names of what's around you, I mean Black Witch's

00:54Butter, Pennyseps, Jelly Ears, Velvet Shanks, those are just a few off the top of my head

00:58really.

01:00It's just as good learning the names of the colourful ones as the edible ones and it's

01:04just as much fun coming face to face with the ones that are loaded with poison, the

01:08ones that will kill you within about 24 hours, they've got names like Death Cap and Destroying

01:11Angel, that's fun.

01:14Once you learn to tell the difference between them of course the best result you can get

01:17is if you find something for dinner that night.

01:19Depending on what you find it'll be a million times better than what you can find in the

01:22shops.

01:23I've already mentioned Pennyseps which are known as Porcinis but in the three years I've

01:26been here I've also eaten Babyleats, Horse Mushrooms, Shaggy Ink Caps, Field Mushrooms,

01:31just off the top of my head and what I don't eat you can also just dehydrate in the oven

01:36and put in the pantry for the year.

01:38So when things go really well you'll have enough left over for cooking sessions in the

01:41kitchen like this one.

01:43They're drying off, hopefully that goes well.

01:46These have been cleaned and peeled in places.

01:50Here's all the stuff I peeled off or cleaned away just to make things simpler, I'm not

01:53eating that one, I don't trust it.

01:56And there's still all this left over which I don't know if I should use it now or dry

02:02it off so yeah.

02:05Well now that we've come to a stop I can show you my haul from today.

02:08After going out foraging here in the woods what I've found is nothing.

02:12I think this is quite typical to be fair, if you come out foraging you better be doing

02:16it because you like to find mushrooms just to look at them not so much because you want

02:19to eat them.

02:20All the ones I found this weekend were either the poisonous kind, the mostly eaten kind

02:25or the inedible kind.

02:26That kind of covers most mushrooms now I think about it.

02:28This is a good chance to talk about some principles though, if you're going to go foraging especially

02:31for mushrooms there's a phrase you need to remember, never munch on a hunch.

02:35This is the guiding principle.

02:36I've shown you lots of things today and I wouldn't eat any of them.

02:38I saw one thing today that I think might have been edible and I still wouldn't eat it because

02:41I'm not 100% sure.

02:43Eating mushrooms you find in the woods without identifying them is a very surefire way to

02:46end up in the hospital or at the very least with severe gastric problems for 24 hours.

02:52So if you're going to go out into the woods of Sheffield and just dig around for things

02:55to eat that you can make pasta with that evening, only do it if you know what you're doing.

03:00Buy some books, maybe just go out on a look around and don't actually take anything home

03:04to eat on that occasion.

03:06Just remember that phrase, never munch on a hunch.

03:07If you're not sure what you're eating, don't eat it.

03:09Probably a good rule for life as well.

03:11It's at this point if I'm on the walk home I like to use the basket to just sort of pick

03:15up litter instead.

03:16If I know I'm not going to be finding any food for the rest of the afternoon I just

03:19sort of do litter picking instead I suppose.

03:21So we're going to go find the bus and take it from there.

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