CHRIS RUNDLE

WHETHER YOU FORAGE IN THE WILD OR AT THE SUPERMARKET, CHRIS OFFERS TASTY MUSHROOM DISHES

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Cheese and mushrooms on toast are perfect for an autumn meal. Photos: Getty Images

(Getty Images)

JUST imagine the pleasure to be gained by heading off to the woods on a crisp autumn morning and returning with a basket overflowing with freshly gathered mushrooms.

Well, imagining is all I have done this year what with the climate playing havoc with the mushroom season, not to mention baking the ground so hard and to such a depth that many of my favourite picking areas are totally devoid of any signs of mushroom life at all.

In some locations the searing summer heat actually appears to have reached down into the soil and killed off the mycelium, the network of white fibres which represent the body of the organism of which mushrooms are the fruit.