Christmas Eve
I was reminded today that it is six months until Christmas Eve, not by the appearance
of the first Christmas merchandise in the stores, that happens in August, but by
the liturgical celebration of the Birth of John the Baptist. You have to be wondering
what this has to do with mushrooms? In our house, in our culture, the Christmas
Eve holy supper uses a lot of mushrooms. Mushrooms and gravy, mushroom and sauerkraut
soup, mushroom soup along with other dishes. Traditionally these are made without
the aid of meat or dairy products. One of the soups that we make is an exception
to that rule. Each family has it's own traditions and each cook has a slightly different
way of preparing them.
Summer and Fall are the times when the mushroom are collected and dried or frozen
in preparation for that special Christmas Eve supper. I haven't had the opportunity
to do much foraging for mushrooms. Hopefully the future will provide the time to
search and the necessary rain to make the mushrooms grow.
As a matter of fact it was my desire to collect mushroom like I did with my dad
and uncles with I was a kid and to have "wild" mushrooms for the supper
on Christmas Eve that got me back into mushroom hunting and into the mushroom club.
We will have our own Christmas in July craft event at our next monthly meeting.
If you find and collect false turkey tail please let Joyce Gross know. We need them
to do our crafts.
Also keep in mind that we will be putting our third volume of the cookbook together
in the near future and we need your special mushroom recipes. Perhaps some our Christmas
recipes would be candidates for the next cookbook.
by Joe
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