Tag Archives: porcini

MasterChef SA Season 3 episode 15: Top Five Foraging, Mel Sutherland ‘muscled’ out!

MasterChef 3 15 Top 5 ForagingMasterChef Season 3 is slowly coming to an end, with only three more episodes to go.  Last night it was clearly winter when episode 15 was shot in the Cape forests, the focus being foraging.  It also meant the end for Mel Sutherland, who was sent home due to an unsatisfactory ‘muscle (sic) ceviche with wild garlic panna cotta and squid ink jelly‘!

On arrival at the MasterChef SA Top 5 were told that they would have to find their own ingredients in nature. Chef Pete Goffe-Wood told them: ‘The first part of this challenge you have to find your own ingredients. And you’re going to do it in the way we’ve been doing it for thousands of years – you’re going to go foraging’.   The Top 5 were to go out into nature to gather Continue reading →

Wild Peacock supplier of ‘fine delicacies’ to Top 20 Eat Out restaurants!

Wild Peacock David Bullard Whale Cottage PortfolioOn Thursday I met writer and recent Winelands resident David Bullard, Shan Pascall from Oneiric Wines, and Sophia Hawkins of Vilafonte for lunch at Wild Peacock Food Emporium in Stellenbosch, after we had connected at the pop-up lunch by Chef Bertus Basson at Oneiric Wines last Sunday.   I met new Wild Peacock Chef Andrew Jordaan, and we were told by co-owner Andrew Baker that they supply all 2013/2014 Top 20 shortlisted Eat Out restaurants on their wholesale side, run by Sue Baker with son Ross.  Wild Peacock is synonymous with oysters, and other ‘fine delicacies’ served by our country’s leading restaurants, the wholesale operation having opened more than 20 years ago.

Andrew said that the space of their deli and The Larder restaurant had seen a number of different retail outlets previously, and none had been successful due to the lack of parking.  He and Sue had the vision for the deli, which was initially managed by their daughter Sarah, Wild Peacock Cake and cheese counter Whale Cottage Portfoliowho now focuses on the company’s artisanal cheese selection. Parking has been addressed, and from next week onwards there will be parking marshalls operating outside their door, ensuring a regular replacement of shoppers, now able to pop into the Emporium, and to have a bite to eat and a glass of wine to drink.  The deli has grown to become the 2013 Eat Out (previously run by former sister publication Eat In) Produce Awards Best Food Outlet in the South of South Africa!

Andrew created the wine section of the Emporium, and its offering has won a Diners Club Diamond Award as well as Best Small Wine List Award.  Andrew runs The Wine Worx in his day job, selling, marketing, and distributing a range of wines of 21 boutique wineries.  He is also a keen winemaker, having made a house Pinot Noir, which we enjoyed with our lunch.  We were told by the waiter Danny that Andrew uses the cellar at Fryer’s Cove on the West Continue reading →

Capetonians encouraged to forage natural healthy foods on their doorstep!

As a member of Slow Food Mother City I received an invitation to attend the Green Renaissance workshop on ‘Be Inspired… to forage in your city’ last Thursday in an unusual venue: Heaven Coffee Shop inside the Central Methodist Mission on Greenmarket Square.  It was a most inspiring workshop, and impressed in that other than paying for the hot chocolate, marshmallows and other snacks as well as the talks by the four speakers were all free of charge. It was hosted by Green Renaissance to encourage Capetonians to forage foods on their doorstep, having noticed that foreigners are much more likely to forage in our city.

One would have wished every restaurant chef in the city to have been present, and Chef PJ Vadas of Camphors at Vergelegen expressed regret on Twitter that he had not known about it.

Green Renaissance is a ‘little production company that wants to be inspired by nature’ , its co-owner Michael Raimondo said when he introduced the ‘Be Inspired’ workshop series, its second in two months, and wanting its attendees to leave the workshops inspired to implement what they have learnt, in connecting with nature.  A lot of material was covered, and many botanical names were used, without notes provided, so its was speed writing to take notes.  In between each speaker’s talk, Green Renaissance played a short video it had produced to tie in with a theme, e.g. mussel hunting and cooking, waterblommetjie collecting and stew preparation, mushroom collecting and cooking, the preparation of nettle soup (which is rich in proteins, calcium, and iron, and helps to detoxify the body), and chestnut gathering and preparation. Each one of the videos was short and to the point, using titles only, beautifully shot, each ending with the pay-off line ‘Go Gather’!

(Bruno) Julian Mori, a winemaker, told us that there are so many edible species of sea food on our 2500 km coastline but that little use is made of it.  He warned that one should be careful, never turning one’s back to the sea, one should identify what one eats, and one should be careful about red tide, the mussel growers in Saldanha being the most qualified to provide information on this toxic effect on sealife, which is only safe to eat three weeks or longer after the end of red tide.  Any seafood with a smell should be left in the sea, one should not take risks, and one should harvest at low tide, below the water mark. All food removed from the sea requires a ‘bait’ licence, bought at a Post Office.  He raved about sea lettuce, periwinkle, whelks, ‘alikreukel’, limpets, brown, white and black mussels, sea urchins (which are high in zinc), and clams.  He said that Cape Point and the West Coast are the best places to forage sea food. Contact: julianmori@yahoo.co.uk

Loubie Rusch (right) was a passionate (and fast) speaker, referring to a host of bushes and trees in Cape Town (focusing on the Claremont, Newlands, and Kenilworth area where she appears to live), showing photographs of Wild Plum, Water Berry, Num Num (Natal Plum), and Eugenia, all of which she uses to make jellies and cordials under the KOS brand.  She also gathers ‘spekboom‘ for salads, ‘surings’ for stews (have a fresh sourness), ‘veldkool’ (for soup and stews), wild rosemary, wild sage, ‘suurvye‘, wild fig, geranium flowers, nasturtium (‘kappertjie’) leaves and flowers, nettles, dandelions, many of these ingredients going into pestos or salads.  Making KOS, cell 082 314 7200.

Gary Goldman is known as ‘The Mushroom Hunter’, who has been foraging for eight years, supplying Italian restaurants (Il Leone, Constantia Uitsig) in the main.  When he sees chestnuts fall, he knows it is time to forage mushrooms, to be found in a 50km radius around Cape Town.  He spoke about poisonous mushrooms, saying that those with a sponge (porcini in the main) are safe while those with gills are poisonous. He explained that one should twist the mushroom out of the ground, and push back the soil to close the hole, to allow new mushrooms to grow.  One should not cut the stem with a knife.  Gary was not very complimentary about South African mushroom guides, saying that the original ones with drawings were more reliable than the later ones with photographs.  Porcinis can only be found under oak trees, and sometimes under chestnuts, conifers, and beech trees.  Not all species of oak trees look like oak trees, but they all have acorns, which helps one to identify mushroom growing areas.  He advised that one can air-dry mushrooms, and then place them in the deep freeze, where they can be kept for up to 30 years, maintaining their flavour.  One can keep mushrooms in a brown box in the fridge at 4°C for a few days, but one must not remove the soil until one uses them.  Truffles are problematic, in that it takes 40 years to grow the oak trees that are inoculated with truffle seeds.  Our soil also does not freeze over in winter, which truffles need.  He added that plants surrounding truffles die off.  Contact Gary: gary.goldman@cybernet.co.za.

Bridget Kitley specialises in medicinal herbs, having a nursery outside Stellenbosch from which one can buy a number of plants (she spoke quickly and mentioned mostly botanical names), including sage (which stimulates memory and therefore is good for Alzheimer patients, is used for hot flushes, can whiten one’s teeth, is good for hormonal problems, and heals sore throats). Wilde Els is also used for Alzheimer patients, and can be drunk like a buchu tea, helping to reduce temperatures, and to treat coughs and flu.  Wormwood is good for stomach pain, and helps prevent or heal malaria.  Comfrey heals cuts, chilblains, arthritis, bruises, and prevents migraines. Pennywort helps with ADD, lack of concentration, and stimulates the growth of collagen of the skin.  Potager Gardens, Cell 079 499 2209. www.herb-nursery.co.za

Slow Food Mother City has circulated details of two forthcoming foraging events:

*   Olive picking at Francolin Farm, Alphen Drive, Constantia, tomorrow at 14h30.  Cost is R13 per kg.  Book: leeleith@mweb.co.za

*   Delheim Wild Mushroom Forage on 17 and 18 June at 10h30, at R250 per person inclusive of lunch, led by Gary Goldman. Book: restaurant@delheim.com

The speakers at the Green Renaissance workshop enthused the audience to do their own foraging of free and healthy foods, which are abundantly available in Cape Town and the Winelands!

Green Renaissance, 73 Rose Street, Cape Town. Cell 082 290 0197. www.greenrenaissance.co.za Twitter: @GreenRenaissanc

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio:  www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Delheim Nouvelle fungi focus with Mushroom Week

This week Delheim wine estate is focusing on the delectable exotic mushroom, in running a Mushroom Week in its restaurant in conjunction with Nouvelle Mushrooms, the only commercial producer of exotic mushrooms in South Africa, and sole supplier of this delicacy to Woolworths.

I was part of a group of journalists (those from The Star and the Sunday Times flying down from Johannesburg especially for the event) and bloggers that was invited by Erica Meles Public Relations to attend an outing to Delheim yesterday, which kicked off with an interesting talk by Dr Adriaan Smit of the University of Stellenbosch, a mycologist and MD of the SA Gourmet Mushroom Academy.  He impressed with his knowledge of poisonous and edible mushrooms, giving tips about how one ensures that one only picks and eats edible mushrooms.  There are about 1,5 million mushrooms species, and Dr Smit recommended a number of steps for aspirant mushroom gatherers: read every book on the topic (he had five local books), join the Edible Fungi Association, collect with an expert, don’t rely on photograph matching with books only, smell the mushrooms, scratch the stem for colour changes, rub the flesh to check the texture, taste only a tiny piece and spit it out without swallowing the juices, make a spore print on a sheet of white and black paper or on aluminium foil, use chemical tests, eat only one variety at a time, never eat wild mushrooms raw, and always keep some uncooked mushrooms on the side, for a test in case one gets ill.  

For successful foraging his first recommendation is to take along a magnifying glass, to check the mushroom for spores, gills and teeth.  So, for example, the pine ring mushroom must emit an orange-coloured milk to confirm that it is not its poisonous look-alike.  Mushrooms with a white cap, white gills, free unattached gills, a white spore print, with a ring on the stalk, that are small and brown, and/or have a swollen stalk base could be poisonous.  If one has signs of mushroom poisoning, call the Tygerberg Poison Information Center at tel (021) 931-6129.  Dr Smit loves mushrooms so much that his boutique hotel outside Stellenbosch is called The Wild Mushroom, and each of the six suites is inspired by and decorated in the theme of a mushroom variety.

After the talk, guests were taken on a walk to the pine forest on the farm, to look for wild mushrooms (mainly Boletus Edulis, or better known as cep or porcini, and pine ring) with Dr Smit and Nora Sperling-Thiel, daughter of farm owner Spatz Sperling, who is knowledgeable about mushrooms too.  I had a long chat to son Victor Sperling, who told me that about half of the 365 hectare farm is planted under vine and the balance has pine forests.  The pines were planted by Spatz Sperling, possibly as a reminder of his country of origin, on slopes that are too steep to plant vines.  Victor told me that the pine forestry is not really economically viable, but it is a good way for the farm to meet the requirements of the Biodiversity Wine Initiative, in that the shade created by the trees prevents the reseeding of alien plants.  The Delheim focus is on ‘unpretentious winemaking’, says its flyer, and Victor told me they try to change little as their customers like their wines as they are.  They try to make 100% cultivars such as Merlot, Shiraz, and Cabernet Sauvignon, a much bigger challenge, he said, but they do make some blends too.  Brenda van Niekerk is the winemaker, while Victor is the viticulturist and production manager.  His sister Nora heads sales. Victor deplored that restaurants do not support the Stellenbosch Wine Route and its wines.

Fresh out of the forest, we were taken to the cellar meeting room, in which Schalk de Beer, MD of Nouvelle Mushrooms, took us through a presentation on exotic mushrooms and their nutritional benefits.  The company was started in 2006, and currently it produces 2 tons of exotic mushrooms per week, using 10 tons of woody substrates.  About 60 % of the mushrooms are sold through Woolworths, and the balance to restaurants and hotels.  Woolworths currently has a special offer of two punnets of exotic mushrooms for R30.  It has a production facility in the Hemel en Aarde Valley outside Hermanus, and prides itself on its distribution efficiency, given the perishability of its products.  Not known to all is the health benefits of mushrooms, Schalk told us, generically being high in protein.  The exotic mushroom varieties that the company supplies are the following:

*   Shiitake mushrooms are rich in cholesterol-lowering properties, and contain anti-oxidants.  This variety enhances the flavour of the foods that it is served with.  It is the biggest seller in the East.

*   King oyster mushrooms contain anti-oxidants.  They are ideal for Italian dishes.

*   Enoki mushrooms are mainly used in soups in Japan, and look attractive when used in salads. 

*   Shimeji mushrooms can be used as antipasto, or for a pasta sauce, due to their aroma. 

Lunch was served and not unsurprisingly the three-course menu only consisted of mushrooms, paired with Delheim wines, reflecting the menu which Delheim is offering for Mushroom Week running until Sunday 10 July, at R120, inclusive of three glasses of wine, and coffee, offering exceptional value.  I loved the refreshing Paw Paw and Shimeji mushroom salad, an unusual combination served with a light lemon dressing.  The alternative starter offered is Baby spinach salad with seared King oyster mushrooms.  Both starters were paired with Delheim’s Sauvignon Blanc 2010.

The main course was a choice of Risotto with dried Boletus mushrooms, and Tagliatelle with Nouvelle Exotic Mix mushrooms, and guests were offered a choice of Delheim’s Merlot 2007 or the lightly-wooded Chardonnay Sur Lie 2010.  Coffee was served with a Shiitake mushroom and chocolate cookie, paired with the Delheim Gewürztraminer.

I was lucky to sit at the same table as Schalk de Beer, and Spatz Sperling and his wife Vera.  Spatz Sperling is 81 years old, and is an icon in the wine industry, making his first wines 60 years ago on the farm which was originally owned by Hans Hoheisen since 1938, married to his aunt Adele, after whom the farm was named, and having created the country’s first wine route, being the Stellenbosch Wine Route with Frans Malan and Neil Joubert 40 years ago. When asked what changes he has seen in the wine industry over the years, he laughed, and said that it has just got better, and cellar buildings have become more attractive. Vera Sperling told us about the laws that governed wine tasting in early days – a minimum of 12 wines had to be bought, one had to receive a KC6 form as proof of a legal sale if one was stopped by the police, no wine was allowed to be bottled without a ‘white’ person present, and one had to buy wine from the cellar and bring it to the restaurant on a wine estate, as restaurants on wine estates were not allowed to sell wine.  Delheim was the first wine estate to serve food almost 38 years ago, serving a choice of cheeses and patés initially.  A year later Blaauwklippen and Hartenberg followed suit.

Delheim, Knorhoek Road, off R45, Stellenbosch.  Tel (021) 888-4607.  www.delheim.com.  Monday – Sunday. 

Nouvelle Mushrooms, Tel (021) 887-5593. www.nouvelle.za.net

Mushroom Academy, Tel (021) 881-3586.  www.mushroomacademy.com

Disclosure: All guests received an information pack, which also contained a bottle of Delheim Merlot 2007, and a punnet of Nouvelle Mushrooms, with a collection of pine needles and oak leaves from the farm.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter:@WhaleCottage