What to eat with PN?

Geez - I didn't know John was THAT old!

Bill (also an early music fan)

Harpsichord is for sissies. ;) I stick to the King of Instruments.

Bach is great, but soon sounds numb to my ears. I'm not saying ANYTHING bad about the guy because he's a master and I've learned a ton from playing his P&Fs, but there is much to be said for 20th century music which seems to never get the respect it deserves.

: Whassa boleta?

A boleta is a wild mushroom (but be careful - there are poisionous boleta's out there as well!) that for some odd reason would appear in our family's backyard certain years. Interestingly, this was the same type of mushroom my grandfather knew from the Old Country and so we harvested them when they appeared. When cooked, it became slightly slimy but had a pleasant earthy-field taste to it. I'd imagine a savignon blanc would do it justice, but not a red wine (too delicate in flavor).

Seriously, Mark, I've never had one to be able to make any comment. : As for portobello, to me it's too earthy for most Pinots, though I am willing to : concede that a bigger Burgundy (of the type that I have next to no experience with) : might suffice. I treat portobellos as I do red game meat: Rhone wine or Nebbiolo. I : will try Dale's suggestion of Bordeaux and see how that fares. Also, see my : comments to Dale re morels.

Yeah, I'd say both of your opinions on this are valid. I just like foods that need an excuse to open a Burgundy :)

Mark S

Salut/Hi Bill Spohn,

le/on 23 Jul 2003 13:55:11 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Speelong.... "The Whale" is by John Tavener.

WHAT a nice change for me!

I imagine there are more than a couple of us. There's a doctor from the Midlands whose posts have made me suspect he shares our delight in racketts, rebecs and shawms.

Uh - clavichord....? It takes pluck to be a harpsichord fan (from an early music T shirt)

I think that 20th century composers get all the credit they deserve and then some. Although I am partial to some modern classical/jazz, like Jarrett, if they could only gag him while he played (a failing he shared with another great

Dooh! Yes, you are correct.

Salut/Hi John Gunn,

le/on Wed, 23 Jul 2003 21:09:17 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

None that I know of.

There are a family of genera often called boleti. All with pores and a central stipe. They include the true boletus, suillus, Krombholziella, Xerocomus, Gyroporus and others.

Well, poison is in the stomach of the desriber (to paraphrase!) Boletus Satanas can make you pretty sick, though with a white cap and scarlet pores, you've got to be pretty crass to confuse it with the brown cap and pale pores of Boletus Edulis, the "Bordeaux Cepe". There's a couple with bitter flesh that are harmless. I've never heard of anyone being killed by eating a bad one.

would get is an upset stomach, True

Nope, the false morels or Helvella & Gyromitra families are toxic when raw, though the Gyromitra esculenta (as the name implies) has often been eaten, and apparently is harmless after boiling in a couple of changes of water. However, your advice is unwise as deaths have occurred from them.

Absolutely true.

Sliminess is more a matter of which species, than youth. Boletus edulis is almost never slimy, while the suillus family are all pretty slimy.

Another of my passions!!

I've never heard of Landowska, which isn't too surprising since I prefer pop music, but I remember that Anthony Newman was quite good on the harpsichord, playing JS Bach. Not too shabby on the pipe organ either. I have some vinyl somewhere around here...

Tom S

knew

You've never heard of Wanda Landowska, who married Howard Hughes, then after his death married Henry Kissinger?

She's Wanda Hughes Kissinger now! ;-)

: Sliminess is more a matter of which species, than youth. Boletus edulis is : almost never slimy, while the suillus family are all pretty slimy.

Interesting how this NWR topic is evolving :) Well Ian, this must be the mushroom I am familiar with that grew in our backyard, under larch trees. This definately had a slimy character to it, no matter how lightly it was cooked.

: Another of my passions!!

Do you give fungi-hunting trips from your B&B? Hmmm...time to visit the Massif Central :)!

Mark S

Salut/Hi Mark J Svereika,

le/on 24 Jul 2003 09:40:00 -0500, tu disais/you said:-

Well....

backyard, under larch trees.

Hmm.... let's clarify. The skin of suilluses is slimy while the skin of the boletes - or most of them is much less so except when wet. The flesh of elderly cepes de bordeaux can also be pretty spongy/slimy as well. I much prefer the young ones. (Unlike wine and my neighbour).

I can't remember which family lives in association with larches. Suillus certainly likes conifers, while in general boletes prefer deciduous trees, with the glaring exception of B. pinophilus (which likes pines as the name implies).

I've cheated... I looked it up! Suillus Grevillei (which I knew as S. Elegans) likes Larches "edible but not very good".

"Give" no, but quite a number of our guests do come here in mushroom season, as we're one of France's best areas. When my father coame to visit us years ago, in 11 days we gave hum 14 different varieties of edible excellent fungus! The trouble with running a B&B is that you tend to spend too much time running the business to be able to spend all day out and about collecting fungi!

Late Sept & October is usually reliable.

However I'm no authority on matching different varieties with wines.

I like him, but there is not a large body of recorded music available. I hear his works played once in awhile at local organ recitals.

For French 20th century organ composers, I'd tout Widor, Messiaen and Franck first.

And then there is Naji Hakim, who I saw recently - outstanding, though perhaps more as an organist than composer.

I have a CD of Marie Claire playing about 10 of his and 10 of their father's works on the original house organ. Very nice stuff.

I played Litanies and Variations . . . Jannequin as a senior in HS. Haven't been able to play them since!

Well, of course there is the obvious choice of cheese... but if you are keeping your venue restricted to dinner/meals, pinot noir is easy to match up. Many fish, especially salmon, go with it very well for example.... EVERYTHING goes with pizza, including PN.... veal also pairs with it nicely.

Then again, you DO have to simply consider your own tastes; like one wine book I bought stated, "you have to, in the end, simply drink what you like, there are no rules"; I follow this rule myself, though I often find myself falling into the old "what is appropriate" rut, but I try to avoid it. I usually just look at the three major aspects wine- tannin, body and acidity- and figure from there what goes with a wine if i'm in uncharted territory. I find that the light body but medium to high acidity of PN allows it to go well with salad that has a vinegar based dressing or at least one that is a little crisp and acidic.... ALSO, if the salad has cheese in it, you'll find you can use that cheese topping to help select your wine, and if the cheese by itself would go well with PN (like cheddar, etc), then you're set.

I once struggled with this very topic myself, as my favorite wines include PN and others simular, such as a gamay-based or sangiovese based wine.