PALMA
THIS November is offering a bountiful harvest for collectors of the precious Majorcan esclatassangs (wild mushrooms).
The expert hunters are not keeping quiet about their pickings this year, as they are proudly showing baskets full to the brim on their return from the hunt.
In the past few days, wild mushroom experts, Bernat Munar from Autos Alzina, and Jaume from the Cafe Espanyol in Santa Catalina, have been taking centre stage in tracking down this much-prized natural delicacy. Both keen collectors, they warned that enthusiasts should never eat any mushroom of which they are not certain.
During one of their first hunts, they collected no less than six kilos of this aromatic fungus. Amongst the haul was one esclatassang weighing 450 grammes, which Bernat Munar claimed as a trophy to take back to his home town of Costitx.
Bernat said that this esclatassang was cooked on the grill and we ate it in the family finca. This year, if you know where to look, there are a lot of mushrooms, and not just of this variety, but also picornells. We know that they have been found in abundance in the areas of Calvia, Andratx and Na Burguesa.. It is nothing strange as it rained in the month of August. In addition, there was heavy rainfall in Autumn combined with optimum humidity allowing the spores to develop.
It is clear that both Jaume and Bernat are quite open about saying where they find their mushrooms, and it is known that whoever collects them, eats them.They have also been seen on sale in the Santa Catalina market, on the stall of Miquel Contesti.He gets them from a supplier who is an enthusiast in collecting these mushrooms.They were being sold for 50 euros a kilo. It's quite an obsession among the Majorcans, said Bernat.