Mushroom Princess

Last night we had a feast of mushrooms. I usually like to eat my mushrooms in olive oil with parsley and not overly disguised in heavy cream.

But, this recipe sounded great : wild dried porcini lasagna with sage, from Dean and Deluca Cook Book.

While washing the mushrooms I got an idea for a new fairy tale. I wrote it down immediately. It now waits to be edited. In summary it is about unlikely heroes, borzoi brothers named Oscar and Nico and their rescue of a princess. Because she had been turned into a porcini mushroom -by a wicked witch - this unlucky princess lives in the shape of a fungus without her feet to walk about, with a nice bunny family deep in the woods ... Lovely, isn't it? Now, how to rewrite this without scaring 7 year olds so that they don't cry every time they see a mushroom and get traumatized by seeing someone eat them...Hmmmm...

I read about the etymology of porcini and I came across this interesting information:

The standard Italian name porcini means 'piglets'(remember the expression porco miseria! porco=pig). Apparently the attribution derives from the young mushroom's resemblance to pig's ears.

In French we call them cèpe de Bordeaux.

Apparently it has derived from the Gascon cep which means "trunk" for porcini mushroom's fat stalk, ultimately from the Latin cippus "stake".

Whatever it is called, whichever continent it grows on and however it is cooked this meaty edible fungus is always so delicious!