Albareto mushrooms
admin December 2nd, 2006
Albareto is a small town in the Parma Apennines, a stone’s throw from Liguria, and it deserves a visit during the second weekend in September for the festival of the Porcino Mushroom. This entire area is known for its abundance of these ground cover products, more so in more recent years; they really seem to grow everywhere! At this time homemaker’s stores and hardware shops, but also merchant stands, exhibit armies of baskets for the harvests of fruits of the forest and in front of every home there are boxes of mushrooms to dry.
The Boletus mushrooms from this place are of an excellent quality, so much so that they earned IGP certification, and it’s a real pleasure to taste the specialties that are the protagonists of numerous restaurants present on the “Strada dei vini e dei sapori” (The street of wine and good flavors). They are clearly pointed out along the street and what matters the most is that the prices are really fair. It’s good to remember that there aren’t just mushrooms, but also all the other fruits of the ground cover, therefore in these towns these little shops flourish and they sell typical products in which raspberries, blueberries, cherries, and chestnuts are the main ingredient.
Personally, I’ve tasted floured, chestnut pappardelle in a porcini mushroom sauce. Delicious!