Mushrooms

MUSHROOM HUNTING

INVITATION TO A BLOODLESS HUNT

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s the tendency for foraging expands and chefs are frantically searching for raw materials that nobody else has, we all realize what a priceless feeling it is to find your own food. “It is a great satisfaction for the person of the city to experience the procedure of gathering food, and this is one of the most important reasons that make mushroom hunting such an attractive experience. Also, the mushroom is a magical item. It grows in particular conditions, literally hiding until you discover it� explains Filaretos Psimmenos, owner of the Amanita guest house in the ever-green Tsagkarada on the southern side of Pilion, just 54 km from Volos and at an altitude of 450 meters.

MUSHROOM HUNTING

Greece is rich in mushrooms, but Greeks themselves are only just discovering them. From Alexandroupoli and Grevena to Crete and the other islands, there are many species of wild mushroom, several of them endemic and rare.

Mr. Psimmenos holds wild mushroom hunts for the visitors of the small (just 6 rooms) warm guest house that bears a name leaving no doubts about its orientation. The best season is mid-September to the end of October and mid-May to the end of June. The visitor, with a basket and a penknife, can combine mushroom hunting with enjoying nature on the footpaths of the least populated and greenest village on Pilion, which is characterized by a unique biodiversity: beautiful bridges, springs and a forest of chestnut trees, very tall beeches, plane trees, oaks, lindens, wild apple trees and flowers, huge hydrangeas and camellias.

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MUSHROOM HUNTING

The mushrooms that thrive here are: Amanita caesarea, Boletus edulis, Boletus aereus, Macrolepiota procera, Hydnum repandum, Russula virescens, Pleurotus ostreatus, Black Trumpets, Cantharellus cibarius, Ramaria aurea, but also the spring Îœorchellas. Upon return to the guest house, the baskets go to the kitchen and the presents of the mountain are cooked for the visitor to enjoy by the fireplace with local wine or tsipouro. Then you understand how much tastier the wild mushroom is than the farmed one. You can also COOL HOTELS & VILLAS

MUSHROOM HUNTING

buy jars with cantharellus pickles, frumenty or dried porcini, made by Filaretos with his wife, Marianna.

The facebook page ΜΑΝΙΤΑΡΟΕΞΟΡΜΗΣΕΙΣ -MUSHROOMHUNTING holds outings, usually at weekends, in excellent English as well, in the whole of the Peloponnese, Evia, Mainland Greece, and even Plastira Lake. The mushrooms you should expect to meet are Morchella, Cantharellus cibarius, Boletus edulis, Hydnum, Craterellus cornucopioides, the rarer Tricholoma magnivelare or Pleurotus nebrodensis that are endemic only to Greece and Italy, but also the mythical Matsutake of the East.

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