Cèpes

My first mushroom hunt, or cueillette de champignons, took place in the Montagne Noire with Lionel and Françoise Raviat, friends and fine cooks from the neighbouring village of Caunes-Minervois. This Montagne is in fact a range across the south-western corner of the Massif Central, rising at its highest to over 1200 metres, and straddling the boundaries of the Tarn, the Aude, the Hérault and Haute-Garonne. After a lifetime of hunting and identifying edible fungi, it was extremely humbling to find out how much I did not know.