This is a fungo that, in other words, appears in the same way that the ambiguity of the Amanita family is fascinating: a fungo that belongs to all the family of the killers of the European Bosco, with the final finish of the secoli in the padelle of the kitchen containing the Arco Alpino e appenninico. The fungo is Amanita rubescens, conosciuta in molte area del Nord Italia with the name dialettale di Bescia, e altrove come Tignosa vinata, Ovolo malefico, Rossina or Amanita rosseggiante. Its distinctive trait is a wonderful theater in its own right: there are two tocchi, two tags, two sbucci or two flowers in a lumaca, the carne white vira lentamente verso il rosa, poi verso il rosso vinoso. The fungo che arrossisce, e proprio questo arossamento è la chiave per riconoscerla, per non confonderla con specie letali e per capire perché non debba mai, in nessun caso, essere consumata cruda.
In Europe, there is an environment that covers just 3% of the planet's land but holds more carbon in its belly than all the world's forests combined: peatlands. Walking alongside them means looking into a suspended world, where water doesn’t flow and time seems to have stopped in a plant-like slowness that has lasted for ten thousand years. Those who study mycology, however, know that beneath that elastic carpet of sphagnum moss hides something even more fascinating: an extraordinary fungal network, adapted to extreme acidity, low oxygen, and scarce nutrients, capable of surviving where almost no other decomposer can work.
There are recipes that are meant to amaze and recipes that are meant to solve a taste problem. Mushroom sangria belongs to the second category, even if at first glance it seems to belong to the first. Anyone who has made sangria at home at least once knows the feeling well: a sangria that starts off well, fruity and easy to drink, and after three sips becomes flat, sweetish, monotonous. Something’s missing: that depth which in wine we call structure, in cooking we call umami, and in gastronomic mycology we simply call Porcini...
