Chanterelle, porcini, wood blewit, and milk-cap mushrooms… The season for mushrooms has begun! Noël Benharoun, devotee and expert of wild mushrooms of the Médoc and founder of Médoc Champignons, reveals the secrets of his trade.
Chanterelle, porcini, wood blewit, and milk-cap mushrooms… The season for mushrooms has begun! Noël Benharoun, devotee and expert of wild mushrooms of the Médoc and founder of Médoc Champignons, reveals the secrets of his trade.
It comes from my father, who was very good at picking mushrooms. I have never found as many mushrooms as with him! He had a shop with a bar in our village in the countryside. When we had free time, we would go hunting for mushrooms.
The creation of Médoc Champignons happened partly by chance. At our bar, we used to employ a lot of young people who were seasonal workers. In September, they picked mushrooms and sold them to wholesalers in Bordeaux. That’s how Médoc Champignons began: I offered to buy their mushrooms and sell them directly to my friends and acquaintances in the restaurant business. This allowed me to pay the mushroom pickers better and deliver impeccably fresh products to restaurants without any intermediaries.
I have a network of extremely loyal pickers with whom we have a relationship built on confidence and respect. Among them are enthusiasts, individuals who harvest mushrooms on their own land, and others who are seeking an additional source of revenue. It’s farm to table. The mushrooms don’t have to wait four or five days in refrigerators, so they don’t lose texture or flavor. Our mushrooms are in the kitchens the day after they are picked!
Definitely! Demand really accelerated some two or three years ago. I receive many requests, especially since I offer local mushrooms and chefs are increasingly wanting to work with products from their region.
We have fragrant land! In the Médoc you can find a diversity of mushrooms and a diversity of expressions within a single species. There is, for example, a huge difference between the scent of porcini mushrooms that grow in peat, those that thrive in the swamps near Montalivet, and those that prosper in the drier soils around Listrac. In the same way, chanterelles from the coastal dunes are superior to those that grow in the forest: because their environment is less fertile, they are firmer and have a stronger scent. We have even begun seeing restaurants write “Médoc chanterelles” on their menus!
Mushrooms are not cultivated crops. We are completely dependent on nature, and mushrooms only grow under ideal conditions. The impact of global warming is difficult to measure. It varies by species, even if heatwaves are not good for mushrooms in general: last year, our porcini and chanterelle harvests were very much impacted.
I like all mushrooms as long as they are cooked well. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be the chanterelle, prepared simply and served with potatoes. It’s a rustic dish, something my mother would make.
