Photo: Kristin Bae Mysen
Finally it is time for mushroom picking and for bringing the cooking up to a higher level. For two days now I have enjoyed searching “the gold of the forest”. It is ever so fun, specially returning home with a basket filled with delicacies.
The other day a colleague of mine showed me his Swedish Mora mushroom’s knife, and I immediately fell in love and had to order one right away. And that was not only because the handle was very pleasant to hold, but just as much because I loved the design and that the brush was made of real horsehair. Besides the knife had a funny story. It is actually named after former king Karl-Johan of Sweden-Norway (in English Carl III Johan) who was French and reigned from 1818 -1844. Read more about him here.
Up to 1800 mushrooms were only used for lighting fires in Scandinavia, however in French cuisine they used the fungus for cooking, and therefore Karl-Johan did all of us a favor by bringing the tradition to Norway and Sweden. According to him the most noble and delicious of all fungus was the Boletus edulis (Steinsopp in Norwegian) which he meant had the taste of hazlenut. The monarch did even cultivate the mushrooms around his residence. All this of course lead to the fact that this mushroom is called Karljohan in Swedish. And so is my knife which can be be purchased from here !
