Giant Puffball Ring, Calvatia gigantea. Giant edible mushrooms UK

my life from wild food UK out foraging again it's a late in August and we're in Shropshire and we found some lovely mushrooms to tell you about if you'd like to have a look down here Eric we've got two of them to start off with quite easy to pick what they are there giant puff balls Calvi sure gigantea you can tell when something gets to this size and it's a big spongy ball it's a giant puff ball because there's nothing else in the UK that grows like this we consider any day that we find a giant puff ball to be a good day but if you'd like to come over here we've got two here in a ring in great condition they're ready to grow a bit more which I think we'll probably take today because it's being trodden on by a sheep a thief again in lovely condition six than a seven this one's got more growing to do look over there these are the culprits of all the damage on the giant puff balls taking a keen interest in what we're doing here hopefully they'll leave the puff balls alone afterwards bigger here's number nine a good kilo of mushroom number ten a truly giant puff ball now this mushroom when it gets to this size produces trillions and trillions of spores more spores more progeny than any other living thing on the planet and there's a there's a stat that if all of the spores from one of these mushrooms was to take and then the same happened for a couple of generations within two generations we'd have something 800 times the volume of the planet so I suppose me quite lucky that the giant puff ball is a pretty unsuccessful producer the way that they like to it's poor the way that they spore is that this mushroom or mature and the insides of it will turn to dust and then it will get blown around the field kind of like tumbleweed with the spores getting dispersed all over the place around the field now this ring here is must be growing around this apple tree here the apple trees have no relevance the grassland is these these mushrooms generally grow in grassland you will find them in amongst little copses and around trees on the edges of grassland you generally won't find them too often in in the deep woods but you will every now and again but mainly you find them in grassland it's a beautiful edible mushroom too you know you can't mistake this mushroom for anything else so you're very very safe taking it home to the kitchen to experiment with what we do is make mushroom schnitzels out of them that's because the mushrooms themselves have a fantastic mushroom flavor but the texture when you fry them or cook them gets a little bit floppy let's the flavor down a little bit so what we do fry them up in some butter we always say we're not the most healthy of foragers and then dip it in some beaten egg and then dip it in some sort of spiced breadcrumbs fry it again until the breadcrumbs are crispy and golden brown what you've got is a mushroom schnitzel and it's so tasty really really lovely as a starter or as a side on a main course and you can do other things with it as well cooking wise you can cut the top off hollow out the insides and then cook that off and then refill it with the insides and whatever else you've cooked the insides weird the vegetable vegetables or meat a little bit wine goes in there nicely and put the top back on because the skin on them is actually quite strong and what will happen in the oven is it will hold the insides together as you as you bake it but for me by far the best way is to fry this mushroom up in the last few years now I don't know when you're going to be watching this video but it's 2014 at the moment in 2013 and so far in 2014 we found more giant puff balls the we have any other time in our foraging careers I don't know why it is but they certainly seem to be fruiting more prolifically at the moment so if you want to find one get out there now's the time to do it and if you want to find out more about mushrooms go to WWE world food UK calm

Channel: Wild Food in the UK Ltd

Views: 28,585

Keywords: Giant puffball, giant mushrooms, calvatia gigantea, wild uk mushrooms, august mushrooms, summer mushrooms, mushroom foraging, edible mushrooms, wild mushrooms, wild edible mushrooms, Edible Mushroom (Food)

Id: PmsGetlOKzs

Length: 4min 47sec (287 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 25 2014