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After the rains of the last few days, the porcini mushrooms are out on Friday, September 30. The pickers’ baskets are well stocked, and mushrooms are making a comeback on the menu of many restaurants. Report in the Vosges.
More than a pleasure, hunting porcini mushrooms is a passion in which hikers seriously indulge each year in a Vosges forest. “We put the basket down, we look where we are stepping, and then everything comes around us”, says a woman. To grow, porcini mushrooms need a thermal shock: a sudden drop in temperature, or rain followed by sunshine.
The boletus allows some to earn a little money, by selling their small harvest. At wholesalers, the price often exceeds 20 euros per kilo. So the best mushroom spots are a well-kept secret. The porcini mushrooms from the Vosges are then often found at the other end of France, for example near Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques). Several hundred kilos are cleaned, minced and bottled every day at the Laguilhon factory. The tasting is then done in the restaurant. The boletus is one of the favorite mushrooms of Sophie Bodilis, a young chef who arrived from Normandy. “It’s high season, so I’m definitely going to work it in carpaccio, see if it’s liked”she says.