Mushrooms & Microbes | Flavour Fred on fermenting fungi

The Fermentation Year

Rachel De Thample hosts forager and fermenter George Fredenham (Flavour Fred) on a walk through Hackney Marshes to explore seasonal mushroom identification

Key takeaways

• George Fredenham transitioned from running a St Albans pub restaurant to full-time foraging and fermentation, using his kitchen experience to creatively preserve wild ingredients.
• Wild mushrooms must be cooked to break down chitin, but their fermented trimmings yield intense umami pastes, salts, and reduced 'mushroom marmite' concentrates.

Main topics

• Mushroom identification & ecology
• Wild food fermentation techniques

Notable quotes

I'm a full-time foraging, fermenting, fungi, flavour enthusiast.

Conclusion

The episode provides actionable guidance for safely foraging and ferme

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hi, I'm Rachel De Thample and this is the Fermentation Year podcast where I speak to passionate fermenters and find out how fermentation shapes their year. Today I'm speaking to George Fredenham, a forager who is especially amazing at finding mushrooms. We go out into the Hackney marshes, find loads of mushrooms and we talk about other wild foods that George likes to ferment throughout the year. George is also known as Flavor Fred on Instagram. He has a great following and he really knows how to use fermentation to bring out flavors and to boost the nutritional value of wild foods. So let's dive in with George. George? Speaker 2 (0:43) Or Flavor Fred. Speaker 1 (0:44) Or Flavor Fred. Tell us first about... Speaker 2 (0:47) Why I've got a name problem. Speaker 1 (0:48) Exactly, which I love. Speaker 2 (0:50) Yeah, so my name is George, although I go by Flavour Fred. I'm a full-time foraging, fermenting, fungi, flavour enthusiast, I guess. I like making things out of wild ingredients and have done for 20 years. So yeah, my background is basically, yeah, I had a pub restaurant called The Foragers for 10 years from St Albans. That's where I grew up. And I love finding flavour and making it into dishes, drinks and... teaching people about it basically and in theory what I do Speaker 1 (1:18) what's fermenting always a part of your chef life so Speaker 2 (1:23) the interesting thing is that I actually started as a forager So the pub was my idea along with my business partner. And then within about four or five years, we started brewing and running foraging courses. And we took someone on who helped us with the brewing. And then it kind of went on from there. The chefing bit started when a chef walked out of the restaurant on Friday night and I had to take on the kitchen, which was the start of six years of cooking in that kitchen, basically. Many people have a baptism of fire in cooking. Mine was a real one of literally having no experience of working the pass and putting food out for Speaker 1 (2:06) a Speaker 2 (2:06) restaurant that was full on a Friday night, including the mayor. Speaker 1 (2:08) Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:09) 40 people. Oh, Speaker 1 (2:10) wow. And did that interfere with the foraging when you were taking over the kitchen? Speaker 2 (2:15) Yeah, that was a big challenge. So the person we took on was also into foraging and brewing. thankfully it was supported in that sense but it actually meant that I didn't get to go out and do as much but it did mean I became more creative with it so Speaker 1 (2:30) I when we were doing the foraging Speaker 2 (2:32) for the menu I actually saw myself as someone that would sort of be able to make interesting ingredients dips blends ferments you know all sorts of different things and I would give them to either the kitchen or the front of the house and then they would be able to basically integrate that into the menus in a way that means they don't need to have loads of knowledge about wild food. Speaker 1 (2:53) Yeah. And so we're just not far from your house. Speaker 2 (2:57) We're by a road. Speaker 1 (2:58) Yes, which was probably picking up a bit of noise. But we found a mushroom. Straight Speaker 2 (3:03) away. Straight away. That's why we've stopped here. And are Speaker 1 (3:05) these oyster mushrooms? Yeah, they are. Okay, good. My eating skills are pretty minimal. Yeah, let's walk with them. Yeah. Cool. And what tree is this? Because I don't actually know. So to Speaker 2 (3:15) be honest, it's probably... It's probably one of the old elm that were here before this line of trees. So these are basically... We've got a bunch of different trees along the walkway here. So we've got, yeah, a bunch of limes. We've got some elms. We've got a few others, but I believe that was an elm originally. Speaker 1 (3:37) This Speaker 2 (3:37) does love growing out of elm, but it loves growing out of all sorts of different stuff. Speaker 1 (3:40) Because birch and oak, those are two of the top trees to look out for mushrooms. I mean, Speaker 2 (3:45) to be honest, like I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even say like try and. reduce i would just say look think about all trees um there's there's not many that don't like being broken down by fungi once they're dead it's the the mycorrhizal ones are the ones that you maybe need to start to think a little bit more about what likes to grow around what so those are the the fungi that are working with the woodlands so these are saprotrophic so they are breaking down and decaying dead tree yeah Speaker 1 (4:16) the Speaker 2 (4:16) lignin basically smell it It's kind of quite herbaceous this one. It's quite old as well. It'll smell mushroomy as well. Speaker 1 (4:24) Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:24) So I actually knew they would probably be here because they're actually dotted all along the old elms around here. This is actually fairly rare. This is a tarragon oyster. What Speaker 1 (4:37) does that mean, tarragon? Speaker 2 (4:39) So it's because it has this herbaceous aroma. And apparently when it's cooked, it tastes like tarragon chicken, some people say. It doesn't. Speaker 1 (4:48) It Speaker 2 (4:48) tastes like mushroomy, and there is definitely something there. I sometimes feel it has a little bit of a nice, but when you start foraging and tasting mushrooms all the time. Everyone, whenever I hand them a mushroom to say, what does that smell like? They'll all go, it smells like a mushroom. Of course it does. But for me, I'm thinking. Speaker 1 (5:07) Yeah, of course. And if you're Speaker 2 (5:08) slightly beyond the mushroom. If you smell Speaker 1 (5:10) 20 mushrooms, they'll all have their own. Exactly. Speaker 2 (5:13) So, yeah. So, yeah, this one is actually, I mean, it's fairly young, to be honest. We've had a very dry season, but. This sort of type of fungi you'll find late spring and into summer with this oyster. It's basically quite closely related to the summer oyster mushroom. They look quite similar. Speaker 1 (5:30) Yeah. And Speaker 2 (5:31) they come out at a similar time. So they basically fruit when the temperature is kind of the part of the decision when they're going to actually kick out their spore dispersal method. So yeah, there you go. Nice and easy. As you can see, we've got a few creepy crawlies. We need to let them go back to where they once were. Speaker 1 (5:50) So when I arrived, you were backpacking a mushroom miso, which I tried. It was porcini and it tasted literally like chocolate. It actually even had the sweetness. It was missing a back note of sweetness. Had it had a bit of extra sweetness, a drop of honey, or I was thinking birch syrup or something wild, I think you could pass it off. Speaker 2 (6:11) We could have used my noble firm molasses. Speaker 1 (6:13) Yeah, oh God, yeah, of course. Speaker 2 (6:15) Yeah, that is... Speaker 2 (6:18) A lot of fun, to be honest with you. I've only really been having for about three or four years now. Speaker 1 (6:24) Yeah. So Speaker 2 (6:25) I'm very early on with sort of koji fermentation, but I am. I guess that's the beauty of what I do is I'm kind of able to experiment in a way that maybe chefs probably wouldn't. I'm like literally finding stuff and just sort of thinking, what can I do with that one? Because it's Speaker 1 (6:44) your job more to create the flavor rather than a chef has so many other things on this plate. Yeah. When Speaker 2 (6:49) I'm looking for ingredients, I like to pick them, I guess, responsibly when they're at the peak of their sort of flavor profile and then preserve them or obviously consume them in some way. So those, yeah, those were porcini. The one that you had was a year old. Yeah. Speaker 1 (7:04) That Speaker 2 (7:04) porcini miso. With Speaker 1 (7:06) butter beans, you said? Speaker 2 (7:08) I did it with butter beans. But like, I think that's also because I had two. kilo bags of butter beans in the cupboard that I hadn't used for a year. The batch you just saw me make today is with chickpeas. They were already soaked and frozen, so I just cooked them before you arrived. So I'm trying it with that, but I think I'll come up with a preferred method probably by the end of this batch. The color Speaker 1 (7:31) contrast with miso, when I make my misos as well, always blows me away because the ones you were backpacking that you've just made were kind of the color of hummus, like really light. pale brown tan colored and then the aged one was almost like soy sauce i mean really super dark darker than chocolate yeah Speaker 2 (7:49) or like Speaker 1 (7:50) the darkest chocolate you can get yeah Speaker 2 (7:52) i mean like think about when you really cook down a mushroom it's kind of that that color that you get as the sort of the fermentation has taken place some of the the liquids are sort of all blended together and it's i imagine that will go a lot darker do Speaker 1 (8:06) you cook the mushrooms before you mix them with the beans i Speaker 2 (8:10) dehydrate them okay Speaker 1 (8:12) with Speaker 2 (8:12) wild mushrooms i yeah i think like wild mushrooms in particular you should always cook there's various compounds firstly there's various compounds that you don't get out of mushrooms because you don't cook them so like you actually have to cook the chitin which is the compound fungi is made out of and then with wild mushrooms you also don't know what else is hanging out in Speaker 1 (8:35) there Speaker 2 (8:36) So frankly, yeah, I personally, whenever people ask me about wild mushrooms and eating them raw, right, I say don't do it. But obviously, like, we like truffles. People like raw porcini and porcini carpaccio and stuff. So there's obviously exceptions to the rule. But I think for making big batches of things that I'm not going to come back to for a year. And again, this process, I think, has worked very well the first time using the dried. porcini that i'm happy to go with that yeah Speaker 1 (9:05) i've Speaker 2 (9:06) also like Speaker 1 (9:07) mushrooms Speaker 2 (9:07) are like 90 water yeah Speaker 1 (9:09) about Speaker 2 (9:09) 60 to 90 depending on the type or more so you know if you're going to start doing fermentation and lacto-fermentation you're going to find you're going to have a a jar of water before you've got yeah Speaker 1 (9:22) a Speaker 2 (9:22) nice little sort of dense ferment yeah Speaker 1 (9:25) it's tricky with with when i do lacto-ferments i do some with raw mushrooms Speaker 2 (9:29) but Speaker 1 (9:30) i always make sure they're really dense i usually do it by instinct you can kind of tell when a mushroom's full of water like a parasol just turns to slime yeah Speaker 2 (9:38) if Speaker 1 (9:39) you ferment it whereas you know like little chanterelles yeah they're quite nice right there's your rolls i mean yeah so Speaker 2 (9:48) what your process is for lacto fermentation because there's obviously i've seen like a lot of the scandinavian processes for fermenting them and then pickling them Speaker 1 (9:56) yeah um Speaker 2 (9:57) do you keep them just keep them going not Speaker 1 (10:00) for atrius i find yeah i find they go a little bit too funky and a bit it's more textural they get too slimy i Speaker 2 (10:07) had a i did it with with uh winter chanterelles once yeah Speaker 1 (10:09) and Speaker 2 (10:10) the first couple of weeks i was like these are delicious and then i was like I think I've just made fish sauce out of a mushroom. Speaker 1 (10:17) Yeah, they almost go a bit cheesy sometimes. Speaker 2 (10:20) Yeah. Well, there you go. Mushrooms are interesting and confusing as well at the same time. Speaker 1 (10:26) So it's been very dry. Speaker 2 (10:27) Yeah. Speaker 1 (10:28) And you're about to start all your mushroom walks. Speaker 2 (10:30) Oh, yeah. Speaker 1 (10:31) I mean, what sort of mushrooms potentially are you hoping that might be lingering to save you for your walks as well? But also, we're getting a little bit of rain, so it might tease some out. The Speaker 2 (10:42) drought. has impacted what mushrooms will be out i've been keeping an eye on everything but for now i'm obviously looking for things that will be growing especially from like that dead tree like that that elm i believe we had back there and then you'll find quite a few other fungi that just love