Thursday 16th October 2025 - Quinces, Mizzle and Fungi

I have used most of the quinces, Jim Paine gave me at the Gardening Club meeting, and made the membrillo (quince paste) he recommended.  I can’t at this point say whether we like this or not, simply because we haven’t tried it yet!  Jim suggested eating it with cheddar cheese, which we always have in the fridge, but online Manchego is recommended or a similar very hard cheese.  This is not a cheese we have that often (sometimes used as an alternative to parmesan), therefore trying the quince paste will have to wait until we can buy some Manchego.  Two more quinces went into my Greek pork with quinces recipe.  This provided, using good quality butcher’s pork shoulder and ruby port (a substitute for traditional sweet red Mavrodaphne wine), a very rich dish.

The past few days have been overcast with rain showers, some falling finer than drizzle, often referred to as mizzle – misty drizzle.  The damp has brought forth, out of the earth and through leaves, a variety of fungi.  We now have something which looks like turkey tail growing on the severed trunk of what was a peach tree and now lies on the edge of our pond. On the grass and in crevices, a brown coloured fungus has been erupting in numbers, only to last a couple of days before shrivelling away to virtually nothing.  Walking across the sports field yesterday, there were masses of tiny pale beige fungi and today I just had to take a photo of a much bigger clump (see below), growing impressively, although a bit nibbled, out of the top of a trunk. Apart from basically taking a guess at the turkey tail, I haven’t got the foggiest what the others are.  I am in awe of those who can, with ease, identify them and be confident enough to determine which are edible and those which could make you extremely ill or even kill.  Someone who definitely knows about fungi (I’ve mentioned her before) is Danni.  Her vlogs, ‘Danni in the Wild' are full of interesting information, not just about fungi but foraging in general.