Mushroom Heaven

November 11, 2012

In the last few weeks I´ve eaten more mushrooms than I have in my entire lifetime before now. Who knew I´d become such a fan?! It all started with the Mushroom Festival in Arnedillo.

This is how we find out about events around here -
we find posters on the street!

To go to Arnedillo on the bus for one day was a little impossible, so luckily we had made a new friend the night before and he had a car. It took about an hour to arrive there and the festivities were outside.

This way!

This didn´t turn out to be as much of a "festival" as we had hoped, so we perused the vendors´selections of goods, including pates, beans (uncooked) and pastries and checked out the huge display of fungi.

300+ types of mushrooms! Some edible, some deadly.

This day I also learned the difference between  setas, champiñónes
and hongos. Setas is an umbrella term for mushroom, but also known for
being the type of mushroom that requires another living organism
to grow. Champiñónes are like button mushrooms that can grow in the grass.
I do not know what it translates to for sure.
Hongos are a type of seta/mushroom. I hope I got that right!

Not sure what this one is called. Big?

After checking out all the edible, toxic and deadly varieties of mushrooms we were able to enjoy a light lunch for a couple euros. And of course it included wine and bread. The festival menu offered a choice between Migas de Setas (mushrooms and breadcrumbs, like a stuffing) or Revuelto de Setas (mushrooms in scrambled eggs). Since there were four of us, we shared some of each. Very good, although not piping hot because it was cold and wet. But both were great recipes to be able to duplicate at home. And since then, we have, at least twice.

Migas

With eggs

Because of the rain, the small plaza wasn´t the best place to hang out, so we went up to the street for a coffee, and then tried another mushroom tapa at a cafeteria. It´s odd to order a tapa without wine, so we had another glass. Red wine goes great with mushrooms!

It was still cold, but half of the plan to visit Arnedillo was to see (and maybe indulge in) the hot springs. So after spending about an hour or so in town, we took a walk to the hot springs along the river. It was a short walk and the 3 small pools were full of people, including a naked old man floating on his stomach in the lower pool. That pool was less crowded. We touched the water in the upper, hottest pool to make sure it was warm enough and then we went back to the car to get our suits. The sun had partially came out and it wasn´t sprinkling anymore, so we had decided to go for it! It was the perfect temperature. So relaxing!

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 More on mushrooms in another post! In the meantime, I'll be taking photos of mushroom tapas!