Pfifferling Season

For the last month or so of my time in Germany, chanterelle mushrooms were taking the country by storm. It was like the springtime asparagus craze; these little guys were not only being sold by the kilo in every grocery store and street market, but they were also the focus of entire seasonal menus at virtually every respectable eating establishment in sight. 

I discovered only recently that I am a 'mushroom person.' My mother is a phenomenal cook (and that is an understatement) and will prepare and eat almost anything. . . but not mushrooms. Whether she's allergic or just averse to the edible fungi we aren't quite sure, but the fact remains that I grew up unaccustomed to eating them. Now that I've lived in a country that dedicates entire seasons to the different varieties of mushrooms, I can say definitively that they have to be one of my favorite things to eat. Once I'm back at school (and out of my mother's kitchen) I'll be experimenting more with the earthy flavors they bring to a dish.

This is a picture of one of the specials on the Pfifferling menu from a restaurant in Regensburg called Hemingway's: a penne pasta with cherry tomatoes, arugula, chanterelles, fresh chives, and ricotta.

A few weeks ago Claudiu and I visited his sisters, who live in a beautiful house in the country, about a fifteen minute train ride from Regensburg. For dinner, his sister Gabi prepared a delicious vegetable sauté with carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, leeks, and mushrooms they had picked earlier that morning in the forest nearby. Fresh!