Green Connie - The wild table : seasonal foraged food and recipes

Black trumpet mushroom

VIKING STUDIO

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published in 2010 by Viking Studio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright Connie Green and Sarah Scott, 2010

Photographs copyright Sara Remington, 2010

All rights reserved

Prop stylist: Ethel Brennan

Food stylist: Erin Quon

Food stylist assistant: Victoria Wollard

Camera assistant: Stacy Ventura

Publishers Note

It is important to use caution when gathering and preparing wild edibles. Use reliable guidebooks and/or consult with a professional before partaking of any unfamiliar wild ingredients. The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes or ingredients contained in this book. Anyone participating in the activities that this book discusses or suggests assumes responsibility for his or her own actions and safety. The information contained in this book cannot replace professional advice, or sound judgment and good decision making.

ISBN 978-1-101-66509-1

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For my ancestors, whose communion with nature was no abstraction but a reality planted deep in their heart and gut. | CONNIE GREEN

For Ben Pattersona wild and beautiful soul. | SARAH SCOTT

As a child in the 1950s, I had my first encounter with mushrooms through a can. I have vivid memories of my mothers using Campbells cream of mushroom soup whenever she cooked her beef stroganoff. While it was a humble and simple recipe, it remains one of my most beloved childhood memories and a favorite dish to this day. Later, working as a young chef in Rhode Island, I started adding dried mushrooms to my repertoire. But it was during my apprenticeship in France that I was exposed to their fresh counterparts and became skilled in their preparation. Morels, chanterelles, cpes, the prized black truffles of Prigord, and the white truffles of Alba were some of the incredible varieties that I learned to cook well and appreciate. Mushrooms have an earthy quality that tends to add flavor, dimension, and a sense of luxury to almost any ingredient with which they are paired.

Opening the French Laundry in 1994 was the realization of a lifelong dream, and Connie was one of our very first purveyors at the restaurant. The quality of her mushrooms was so exceptional that she quickly earned the nickname the Mushroom Lady. But while mushrooms were what she was known for, she has also brought in other outstanding wild foods for us to discover and enjoy, such as ramps, huckleberries, and sea beans. My philosophy is simple: to use the very best ingredients available in order to establish a memorable dining experience for our guests. Though they might never meet Connie face-to-face, her contributions help us with our success as a restaurant each and every day. She is an integral part of the process.

Connie continues to live up to her nickname by providing us with a wonderful array of mushrooms that are often the highlight of our menus at the French Laundry. They represent a simple, fundamental ingredient that, with the application of skill and patience, is capable of elevating any dish in which they are introduced. The mushrooms that she and her foragers discover throughout the year help us mark the passage of the seasonsfrom the first delicate morels of spring to the rich, luxurious porcinis of winter. As she steps into our kitchen to make a delivery, basket of mushrooms in hand, our chefs eagerly await to glimpse what new treasures they have unearthed for us that day. It is a ritual we look forward to each and every time.

Thomas Keller, The French Laundry

The call of wild foods was a gentle murmur when I first started gathering food. It was the sound of my grandmothers voice as we dug sassafras and picked scuppernong grapes. Delights like poke salad and mayhaws werent just funny words in old country songs; they were hunted, put on the table, and eaten with great relish.

As the years passed, wild food retreated to the fringes of public interest, but it never lost its hold on me. I was probably standing at the low-tide mark in the late seventies, when I visited numerous San Francisco restaurants trying to sell my baskets of wild mushrooms. I found only two chefs whod ever seen a chanterelle beforeand both were French. One refused even to believe my mushrooms were chanterelles because they do not grow in this country. The other chef recognized the fresh chanterelles but thought they were far too large. He informed me that the ones he was using from a tin can were superior because they were small and French. These were the two best-known chefs in San Franciscos two finest restaurants. Five years later, both restaurants doors were closed and in had swept the dawn of fresh, local, seasonal California cuisine.

Now, more than three decades later, I find myself sitting squarely at the curious crossroads of the Stone Age and haute cuisine. I cant count the times over the years Ive crawled out of the woods quite oblivious to the leaves and twigs in my hair and marched directly to a chef in a crisp white uniform. Thirty years ago the late, great chef Masataka was thrilled to parade me and my chanterelles past diners whose private jets were parked just a few miles from the woods I hunted. One minute Im worried about how we can get our mushrooms across a raging creek and eight hours later Im putting the fresh cpes into the hands of a delighted sous-chef at the French Laundry.