Missy - Supplemental - Mushrooms

I quite like cooking. I also am into history and experimental archeology and historical reenactment. I therefore have a few historically themed cookbooks. 

Apropos of this project is my Dining With William Shakespeare by Madge Lorain. 

This is a cookbook featuring a number of feast menus containing dishes recipes and ingredients mentioned or eaten in the works of Shakespeare. 

It grew out of a theatrical dinner party and turned into a very nicely researched historical cookbook anthology. 

I am vegetarian and that makes a great deal of the book merely academically interesting BUT not all of it. 

Last week I made pickled mushrooms. These were used as pickles are now-a-days, and also as a salad during the winter when fresh vegetables were tricky. 

For the menu I referenced they were in the first appetizer spot. 

It wanted fresh mushroom picked under a certain moon phase, and I very much doubt theses were that, but I did find them easily and felt safe eating them.  

They get cut up and boiled in salty water then quickly rinsed.

I’m very happy to get to use my long pepper here. 

Normally when I make pickled anything I start with a premade pickling spice mix, but this time I had a very specific and historical mix to create. 

It was mostly made up of pumpkin pie spices like nutmeg and mace and cloves. 

It also called for black pepper corns. 

I however have long pepper. 

Long pepper was the pepper of Europe from the time of Rome on down. 

It’s a little hotter and a lot more flavorful. It reminds me of nutmeg(ish) so imagine black pepper and allspice had a baby that leaned spicy. It’s great!

By the 1600s this was considered an old fashioned and out of favor staple, having been replaced by modern black pepper. 

I far prefer the flavor of long pepper however so in it went. 

This part of the process filled me with hope and optimism. This spice mix smelled so good. It’s the best smelling pickling spice I have ever encountered. 

The next part was weird for me. 

These are pickled in white wine. I normally pickle in vinegar and don’t drink alcohol so I didn’t even have any white wine. 

Happily my mom had some so I used hers and then let the whole concoction sit in the basement near the washing machine for a week. 

Then I opened them up and took a piece for me and a piece for my husband and gave it a go. 

Hmmmm

Very wine-y and almost squeaky. 

Lots of spice but mostly sour wine-y spices. 

Meh

They are edible and might even appeal to someone who likes pickles and mushrooms and wine. If you are that person let me know. I’d like a 3rd opinion here. 

I will be trying that spice mix next time I pickle red onions but definitely I will go back to vinegar. 

I’m going keep trying some of the Shakespeare recipes here for supplemental entries. 

UPDATE 

Important updates from the field: my friend Matt (who likes pickles/mushrooms/wine) tried them and said they were good. 

Woo!

Keep an eye out for those fairies y’all.

 

"You demi-puppets that by moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make,

Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime is to make midnight mushrooms."

The Tempest