Summer is here, and with it comes the finest of all edible boletes. Cep, porcini, penny bun and many other common names have been given to Boletus edulis; in the USA it is known as the king bolete; in Sweden is is called Karljohan svamp after the Swedish King Charles IV.
Edulis means edible, of course - a very confusing term since most boletes are edible and many taste nice (but be aware that several others do taste rather bitter) and very few are toxic. Avoid any red-pored boletes, as some of them are reportedly quite seriously poisonous; and the pink-pored Tylopilus felleus, commonly called the bitter bolete, will spoil a meal if accidentally gathered along with ceps.
Where can you find a good supply of ceps? Currently dried ceps cost around £200 per kg, and that alone suggests they are not easy to gather in quantity. We find ours in conifer forests and sometimes under laneside beech trees, as these are mycorrhizal fungi that are always associated with trees but not tied rigidly to just one type of tree. Forest edges and clearings are good places to try, as also are the banks of woodland drainage ditches.
Ceps can grow to 30 cm in diameter, but by then they are usually maggotty and well past the edible stage. Small, firm caps and stems are the best for eating. They can be dried - we slice ours before drying them - and stored in jars for use throughout the winter months when fresh edible wild fungi are not readily available.
Ceps are our favourite edible mushrooms. Unfortunately (so far at least) their mycorrhizal nature has thwarted attempts to cultivate them in commercial quantities, and so the estimated 20,000 to 100,000 tonnes of ceps eaten each year across the world are all gathered from the wild.
