Had an enjoyable stroll around Foodies Festival in Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon. Eating a game pie, half a dozen osyters and a couple of slugs of Ardbeg probably wasn’t the wisest of mixtures but it was fun despite the gurgles of protest from my stomach.
One of the more unusual stalls was that run by Ardnamushrooms. They sell artificial logs made from oak shavings, hardwood chips, organic bran and gypsum. The blocks are seeded with fungi spawn which you can cultivate in your own home. We bought an oyster mushroom block and hope to get it up and running in the next couple of days.
As well as eating the fungi, what I’m most looking forward to is casually dropping into dinner party conversation that we grew the oysters ourselves. Friends with gardens, allotments and raised beds are forever banging on about how the rocket in the salad came from the garden ‘just five minutes ago’. When it comes to pointless one upmanship, I expect that being able to say that the mushrooms came from ‘the cupboard under the stairs’ might prove to be the winning blow.
Ardnamushrooms encourage their customers to send in Me and Mushroom pics. You can see some here.