Alan Davidson

Blewit

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

blewit a corruption of ‘blue hat’, which is a good name for a bluish-lilac edible mushroom which is common in Europe and the USA. There are two main species, the wood blewit, Lepista nuda, and the field blewit, L. saeva.

The wood blewit has a cap measuring up to 12 cm (4") across, growing on a relatively short stem. Cap, gills, and stem are all likely to be bluish-lilac. The field blewit is almost as large, but its cap tends to be pale grey or brown, the gills pale grey, and the stem greyish with just a blue or lilac tinge.