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Good morning chef,
Fresh Wild Mushrooms
To coin a football phrase, we are exhibiting strength and depth this week.
A wild mushroom agent proudly presented “
French cepes (wormy 20%): €21” on their offering today. We shan’t be buying those ones. Here’s what we have lined up instead:
Cep - fom France and Romania
Chanterelle Jaune - the arrival of the magnificent yellow-legged autumn chanterelle from Spain
Medium and
Mini Girolles - from Russia and still lovely
Trompette - from Bulgaria
Pied de Mouton - from Bulgaria
That’s the first team. On the bench but likely to make an appearance before full time we have:
Scottish girolles
Giant puffballs
Cauliflower fungus
Chicken of the wood
Albatrellus aka
Forest Lamb or
sheep polypore mushroom
Truffles
Summer truffles cling on for a further few days. Very soon (possibly mid-week) the Italians will call them autumn truffles and ramp up prices.
We have heard whispers of whites. I normally like to hold fire until the start of October for the magnificent tuber magnatum,

but if the quality is there we will go early this year.
Fruit
Flat, white,
blood and
yellow peaches and
nectarines
Cherries switch to the US
Kentish
cob nuts continue for at least another week
Crab apples
Damson plums
Greengages
Mirabelle plums
The first good
English Victoria and
Jubileum plums
Lovely and dirt cheap
Turkish black figs
Charentais melons
Muscat grapes
Quince
And an almost out-of-control range of
tomatoes, if you want to get pedantic about fruit and veg classification
Vegetables
Round aubergines
The ever-popular
crapaudine,
candy and
golden beets
Coloured carrots
Swiss and
rainbow chard
Purple sprouting broccoli
Potimarron squash
Fresh
coco beans
Artichokes galore
Lovely
borlotti beans
Brightly
coloured cauliflowers
Golden turnips
Our virtually year-round spread of
foraged sea vegetables
Lovely waxy
Ratte potatoes
A plethora of
salad leaves, and in essence more fruit and veg than you could shake a yellow courgette at
Game
The delicious and eminently affordable
red-legged partridge is now in full flow.
My favourite game bird, the
wild mallard duck, has technically started, but we will wait a couple of weeks for size to increase. Little did I know when feeding mallards with stale bread as a boy that I’d be tucking into their plucked and roasted ancestors with a light Madeira jus some years later, and having infinitely more fun with the latter activity.
We have affordable
port and
Madeira in handy tapped boxes to complete your dish.
What more can you ask of nature, eh?
For more details of the autumnal bounty, call the team on 020 7498 5397.
Have a great week.