Trumpets Of Death
Fancy some trumpets of death? Look no further than French supermarket shelves. Here, next to the Morille mushrooms, you’ll find the ‘Trompettes de la mort‘, or Trumpets of Death. Also known as ‘black trumpets’ in English, these mushrooms are apparently quite difficult to find, and if bought dried, taste a little like truffles.
Regardless, I just can’t bring myself to buy something that sounds like it’s going to kill me. Just looking at the bottle, I can almost hear those little fungi playing a muffled death march! On top of that, I just can’t get past that weird slimy texture of mushrooms that my instincts warn me against every time I chew on one. I’m anti-mushroom and proud. But perhaps I’m alone. Would you buy trumpets of death?
I'm a technical author, journalist and writer from Australia who has been living in Europe since 2000 and exploring the world from there. My passions are writing, snow sports and travel.
Bien sur, I love mushrooms and, what’s in a name anyway? I was mildly traumatised at the Shopi in Bedoin when I first noticed tampons of steel wool!
Everyone goes mad round here picking fungi in the autumn. Not us. I get my mushrooms from the supermarket, fresh, not tinned. Ugh. Anyway, we intended to harvest our own tasty mushrooms and bought a book on identifying the various fungi you find. We soon saw that types that were bon comestible and others that were mortelle looked incredibly similar. And when we read the last section in the book that described the seven different ways fungi toxins can kill you, well, that was that. Book in bin, supermarket mushies only!!
Yes, I would buy them, since I sadly now live in a town. Mind you, even in the country I only found them once. But it was a huge load of them!
Hi, they are among my very favourite mushrooms, but I’d much rather pick them myself! And once you know where they are, the harvest is jouissive! And do you know why they’re called trumpets of death? A much more enticing name is horn of plenty.
http://www.aussieinfrance.com/2011/10/trumpets-of-death/
Ron, that reminds me of an American friend who was shocked that ‘douche’ meant ‘shower’. She couldn’t say the word out loud! I have a steel wool tampon. 🙂
Steph, at one point, you could take picked mushies to the pharmacy and they would identify them for you. I’m not sure they do that anymore, but I’m not sure I’d eat it unless I’d bought it from a shop just in case.
Tonton, I may be alone in not buying them I think.
Fraussie, I guess I’m just not a fan of mushrooms – even the local morilles in fondue here get eaten by everyone else. I like the taste, but the texture grosses me out (like fruit in yoghurt – urk).