Gorgonzola Mushroom Recipe

I used to pick wild mushrooms when I was wee. We would walk out along the edge of the orchard and look for the little buttony types, learning which ones were poisonous and which were ok to eat. Then again we did a lot of weird $#!t. We pounded aromatic flowers into pastes which we then tried to use to make Scotland smell better. We collected shells from the beach and glued them to the sides of buildings. We took aerosol upholstery cleaning foam and wrote words on concrete walls and then set fire to it. We put pennies on the train tracks and waited for the 125 to come by and flatten them. Why? We were bored. It’s freaking Scotland; all the adults were drunk or high all the time. Even the little old ladies that dragged their ancient chairs outside their precariously positioned cottages to sit and knit and drink whiskey and tell the tales that scared the bejeezus out of us. Tales of the Selkies (Or Kelpies), the “Little People” (or the “Wee Ones”), Brownies, Hobgoblins, Will o’ the Wisps and the most terrifying of all the Shellycoats.

Shellycoats are like bogeymen; they are rarely seen but often heard. This is because they wear coats made out of shells that click and clack as they stalk you. They haunt the brooks, burns and streams and can even be heard along the riverbanks. They are especially present in the rolling fog of Scotland, not so much a pea soup fog but more like a vichyssoise, thick, rich and white, a senatorial fog if you will.

The fogs in North Eastern Scotland are spontaneous. Sometimes they roll through the gutters so that you can’t see your feet, and then curl up like smoke as they hit the dikes (Walls, that is what we call the walls you freaks!) and loll over the dykes and the stiles and eventually envelop everything in a choking moistness.

While walking alone, then you could hear the Shellycoats…clack clack clackity clack. As the fear would rise up through your feet and lodge in your stomach, the sound would stop. Whiteness all around you, then a clack, clack – clack….then silence, not just the silence that is the absence of noise. The silence that indicates that something or someone is being very quiet. The air just behind one of your ears gets warm, as if someone just breathed the tiniest breath. Shellycoat is behind you. RUN! The clackity clack starts again, faster and faster Shellycoat will get you Shellycoat will take you back to his lair; Shellycoat will eat you bit by bit. Shellycoat knows where you live! Shellycoat knows where you dream. You run faster hurtling down the unpaved roads praying that you won’t trip on a rock and become Shellycoat dinner. In the madness of running you try to keep to the path you know, because the Shellycoats are known to lead you astray, that you might fall into bog or the burn. Over the stile and into the orchard, you keep running, and Shellycoat is right there clackity clackity clack! “I am going to catch you” Clackity Clakity Clackity Clack. Then through the dense air the yellow light streaming out yet lost drifting in the night, a house! My house running I hit the back door haul open the top half which was always unlocked and tumble over onto the hard flagstones of the kitchen. Much to the horror of the housekeeper.

“What in the name of...” She tried to say.

“Shelly…Sh...Shellycoat! He’s after me!”

“Nonsense.” Nellie picked me up off the floor and closed the upper half of the door drawing the bolt tight and genuflected quietly. Then turned the mechanical locks with precision and turned to me.

“Now who would have put that in your head?”

“Shellycoat...by the burn…” was all I was able to manage.

“Let me get you a cup of tea...oh... here let me take your satchel, you sit down and tell me all about it.”

As I became a little calmer in the safety of our kitchen, Nellie hauled the satchel off my shoulder.

Clack clack clakity clack.

She looked at me and said. “Tch, now if you don’t fasten the buckles you’re going to lose something, and don’t say I never told you. Besides they make a hell of a noise. Drink your tea I’ll put this up in your room. “As she walked clack clackity clack I heard, it got fainter as she took my satchel to my room, clack, clack…

Morale of the tale? Kids are dumb and impressionable.

Back to the mushrooms.

I made these recently for a dinner out in Sherwood Forest; or rather I brought the ingredients over, and got someone else to do the work. They are horribly indulgent.

Ingredients:

24 Large mushrooms 2-3 inches across

1 8oz package of cream cheese

Half a bunch of green onions chopped

1 Clove of garlic

6 oz of Gorgonzola cheese crumbled

1 Tablespoon of butter

Method:

Wash the mushrooms and remove the stems, chop the stems fine. Sauté the onions, garlic and chopped mushroom stems in butter till the mushrooms have released their liquid and it has evaporated. Remove from the heat transfer to a bowl and add the cheeses. Using a wooden spoon mix really well then pile into the mushroom caps.

Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 10 minutes till lightly golden.