John Rensten’s New Forest Edible Mushroom Courses
Come on an enchanting two and a half hour wild edible mushroom course in the New Forest. The Fates be with us as we set out stalking the ever elusive wild edible mushrooms. Such culinary fungal delights as Cep, Bolete, Ink Cap, Chanterelle, Hedgehog, Trooping Funnel Cap & more gourmet delights than you can shake a stick at … however …
Please Note: The exciting thing about edible mushroom hunting is that you never quite know what you’ll discover. Sometimes you may come home with a large glut of edible mushrooms, and at other times you may return empty handed. In Nature there are no guarantees!
John Rensten (that’s me above) lives and works in London.
In 2004, with a good friend, I opened a successful gastro pub, The Green, in Clerkenwell EC1 and soon found that I could combine my love of foraging with my enthusiasm for running a busy eatery. Actually it was the perfect excuse to get me away from the hectic side of the business and get some more peaceful time in the woods or by the coast. We started to add various foraged items to the menu. Initially I picked lots of delicious wild edible mushrooms, that having been my hobby for a few years previously, also plants like wild garlic and sorrel that I gathered each Easter in Devon and our chef used to make wild garlic mash or garlic and sorrel soup. Seabeet from Dorset was always popular too and soon we had the menu dotted with foraged treats, wild fennel, rose hips, elderberries, samphire, borage, mallow and various seaweeds.
I don’t have the pub anymore but since then, and on a daily basis, I study wild food, pick wild food, obsess about wild food and love sharing what I have learnt, running edible mushroom forays and taking groups mushroom hunting in The New Forest… I look forward to meeting you shortly…
