34 | Dried Mushrooms
It will often happen in a normal fungus season that the production will exceed the possibility of consumption, and thousands of pounds of delicious mushrooms will thus be left to decay in their haunts.
The process of drying mushrooms for winter use is in most extensive practice by the peasantry of Europe and Britain, who thus find an all-the-year-round dependence upon mushroom diet.
With most species this process of desiccation is so simple that it is recommended, in the confident belief that, once tried, the winter mushroom will hereafter afford a frequent relish upon many a board and will well repay the slight trouble in their summer preparation.
In most of the Agarics—notably the Campestris, Procerus, Champignon, Russula, Chantarelle—simply threading on strings and hanging in the sun and wind, or festooned above the kitchen range, will be sufficient to reduce them to complete dryness in a few hours. Indeed, some of these, such as the Procerus and Champignon, dry spontaneously in their haunts, and may be thus gathered.
In the instances of more fleshy fungi, such as the Boleti, Polyporei, and Coprinus, more rapid desiccation is necessary. By exposing them in the sun on a tin roof or absorbent paper the moisture is rapidly evaporated. They might also be suspended above the kitchen range in a wire basket and thus quickly dried. In Boleti the drying is facilitated by the removal of the whole pore layer, which is easily separated from the cap.
The Clavaria and Morel are very simply dried, even in ordinary house temperature. Strung upon threads and suspended in the sun or near the fire they would very quickly be reduced to absolute dryness.
Mushrooms thus treated seem to retain their aroma; in Procerus, Clavaria, Morel, Helvella, and "Fairy-ring" being intensified above that of their moist condition and most appetizing.
The desiccated specimens should be kept in a dry place, with good circulation of air, or enclosed in hermetically sealed tin boxes; in the latter case being occasionally examined to insure against mould by possible absorption of moisture.
When desired for use they are simply soaked in tepid water, which, by gradual absorption, causes the specimens occasionally to assume almost their original dimensions and juicy character, when they should be treated as recommended for the fresh mushrooms.
For the benefit of the vegetarian, or the curiously or experimentally inclined, I append a few suggestions apropos of a menu à la mode, in which the fungus might be employed with good effect as a rival to the familiar established prandial delights. Each selection is numbered with reference to its particular descriptive or suggestive paragraph in the preceding pages of the chapter.
A feast based upon these recommendations, re-enforced with appropriate adjuncts—the "mother"-born vinegar, the fungus-leavened loaf, the fungus-foaming beaker—might cumulatively prove a persuasive plea for the creed of vegetarianism.