Out in the field

Basket to plate ... wild fungi plucked from the forest.

Tricia Welsh discovers the delicious and the deadly while foraging for fungi on the forest floor.

'There are old mushroom foragers and there are bold mushroom foragers," Macedon wild mushroom expert Richard Foard philosophises. "But there aren't any old and bold mushroom foragers," he adds, through his greying beard.

Foard and his 12-year-old twin sons, Jonathan and Lewis, have come to help guide a group of about 36 mushroom-lovers through the pitfalls of self-harvesting wild mushrooms. He has brought a basket of just-picked multi-coloured fungi for us to study and inspect before letting us loose to fossick on our own.

He describes them all. There are bright orange-coloured saffron milkcaps or pine mushrooms (lactarius deliciosus) found only in pine forests, muddy brown slimy-looking slippery Jacks (suillus luteus) with pores instead of gills, small grey ghosts (tricholoma terreum) and gorgeous lilac-coloured wood blewits (lepista nuda).

"There are about 20 different sorts of wild mushrooms we pick," says Foard, who has been supplying Melbourne restaurants such as the European, the Grand, Pure South and O'Connell's with mushrooms harvested from local pine forests for many years. "You need to read and get familiar with them to recognise them. Stick to young ones."

He also warns us to be wary of the wonderful-looking classic red ones with polka dots (amanita muscaria), which look jauntily like a fairytale setting for a story-land picnic for little folk.

Armed with wicker baskets and sharp knives, we set off in different directions through the pine-forest plantation. "There are plenty just by the roadside," Foard whispers. As we head off, there are flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder but we have umbrellas and waterproof jackets - and realise that this is the weather in which wild mushrooms thrive.

Besides, mushroom foragers brave any weather. "We go hail, rain or shine," I recall Justine Noy telling me on the phone the day earlier. Justine, with her husband Peter Thomas, owns Rasputin's restaurant in Macedon. The mushroom-foraging adventure is just one of their innovative ideas to keep Sundays "fun days" in the country.

The entrepreneurial couple took over this country restaurant last November and recruited chef Mark Renaud (who once cooked beside Sean Donovan at gastro-pub the Station Hotel in Footscray and the Botanical in South Yarra), who was keen to move to the country to have his own restaurant garden. Between them, they are keen to share the region's natural bounty with local diners and food-lovers and have come up with a program of gourmet experiences.

Today's adventure has attracted participants from Melbourne - an easy 50-minute drive up the Calder Highway - and folk from Romsey, Riddells Creek and Macedon.

Foard tells us about the consequences of being a "bold" mushroom forager and eating unknown varieties. "People kill themselves every year in France," he says, despite the fact every pharmacist is a fungi expert and can advise foragers on what to eat and what not to.

"Some can induce death in a day - others from five to seven days," he says.

But back at Rasputin's, we pool our harvest and let chef Renaud sort through our collections, dispensing with any suspects. By a warming fire and with a glass of Adam Marks's biodynamic Bress wine from Harcourt, we watch as Renaud cleans mushrooms with a damp pastry brush and then pan-fries them with a little olive oil, butter and a touch of garlic and rosemary. We sit at two long communal tables for a wild mushroom feast of delicious warming soup, a mushroom, blue cheese and caramelised onion vol-au-vent, followed by the smoothest potato mash, topped with goulash beef and more mushrooms - and a bag of mushrooms each to take home.

On July 31, Rasputin's plans a hands-on sausage-making day focusing on several different-flavoured European-style sausages and salami. Renaud will demonstrate how to make and cook them and, later, participants can sit down and enjoy eating them for lunch accompanied by premium Macedon Ranges wines. The cost is $70 a person.

In spring, Rasputin's plans an eastern Europe food festival based on the owners' love for the Dalmatian Coast, with recipes gleaned from their frequent forays there. "There will be five or six countries represented," Peter says. "Traditional food, say from Italy, Croatia, Greece - all done without using electricity. We'll use our large pizza oven to cook Turkish bread; Hungarian goulash will be done in a cauldron over a fire."

Rasputin's Bar, Gallery and Restaurant is at 40 Victoria Street, Macedon, 5426 3700. See rasputinbar.com.