Customer Reviews:
 from the dustjacket April 22, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Here is a book for dedicated mushroom hunters who want to make the most of their gastronomic treasures and for the discriminating cooks who value the ineffable flavor that any fine mushroom imparts, be it cultivated or wild. Edible fungi of all kinds have been the inspiration since the seventeenth century for the finest recipes in every important cuisine. Cooking her way through this rich heritage, Jane Grigson, an inveterate mushroom hunter who has always enjoyed the feast that follows the pleasures of a splendid day's pickings, now shares the best of the recipes she herself has perfected as she has borrowed, recreated, invented dishes designed to make use of mushrooms in subtle, surprising ways, and to feature different delectable varieties to their best advantage.
Drawings of the twenty-one most common species and information about each one (physical characteristics, habitat, culinary properties) prepare the reader for the heart of the book- Grigson's choice array of recipes for mushrooms in soups, sauces, stuffings; dishes in which the mushroom is the main ingredient; meat, poultry, and fish dishes in which it is the essential flavoring; and, finally, a sampling of Japanese and Chinese recipes calling for the lovely, luxurious shiitake or the crunchy wood ear (both available here, dried).
One of the particular joys of this book is Jane Grigson's infectious enthusiasm for her Subject. Having pursued the mushroom for more than twenty years and being, blessed with a superb palate, she is able to describe the precise taste and texture of a particular species. And she is not a snob she appreciates the fresh cultivated, store bought variety or the common field mushroom at the same time as she delights in a prized truffle, because she knows the properties of each. She understands the affinities that certain mushrooms have for other ingredients, when they act as a foil, give their all to a dish, or create a perfect marriage She tells us about the best ways of preserving mushrooms drying and freezing (Only up to a point ), as well as storing away the miraculous French duxelles, which can then be spooned out like gold to enhance almost any dish. The bits of history about mushroom cultivation, the tore behind a recipe, the lure of a hushed woods when girolles have sprung up these are among the many delights that make this book so deliciously tempting.
Jane Grigson. is the author of The Art of Charcuterie (1968). and Good Things ( 1971), which are published by Alfred A. Knopf.
Try: Mushroom Sauce (from Hannah Glasse's Art of Cookery, 1747), Careme's sauce hachee, Boletus Soup, Mussel soup with mushrooms, Mushroom fritters with tomato sauce, Mushroom cake with a cream sauce, Creamed mushroom puffs, Mushrooms in Madeira sauce, Mushroom caps filled with chopped olives, Mushroom caviare from Russia, Mushroom sandwiches, Basic mushroom salad, Smoked salmon and mushrooms, Potatoes gratin with mushrooms, Eggplant with mushrooms, Eggs in cocotte with truffles, Tree mushroom recipes (from Apicius), Truffle recipes (from Apicius), Fish baked in foil with mushrooms, Lamb cutlets with puree soubise and mushrooms, Chicken with a cream and ceps sauce, Quails with a truffle and port stuffing, Steamed egg custard with chicken and fish, Vinegared rice and seaweed rolls, Steamed chicken with padi-straw (grass) mushrooms, etc.
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