Foraging Guide: Wood Blewit Mushroom

1st December 2023 | Words by Dave Hamilton

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If the foraging year was one big party, the morels and the St George’s mushrooms would be first to arrive at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, whilst the blewits would be the last to roll in, sometime in the early hours, probably clutching a four-pack of lager. The wood blewit (Lepista Nuda) is a perfume-scented fungus that thrives very late in the season, when the temperature drops and the dark nights draw in. This makes them the ideal quarry for the autumn-winter forager, provided you’re willing to hunt in the deep, dark woods…

Identification

Be warned: these are not the easiest mushroom to identify for first-time foragers, as they have one or two lookalikes that you might want to avoid. Blewits can also be very changeable in appearance. The cap of a young blewit can turn inward around the edges, whereas with older specimens, the edges of the cap can begin to turn upwards. Caps and gills are a vivid lilac colour on younger mushrooms, fading with time. Unlike the wide-open gills of the wax cap (another late-season, edible and often colourful mushroom), you’ll find the gills of the blewit quite crowded. Caps are also smooth but not in any way slimy.

Some species of webcap or Cortinarius can look like wood blewits. Although these lookalikes are not poisonous (unlike many members of the webcap family), they are very bitter, will ruin a meal and can lead to gastric upset. Thankfully webcaps have a few distinctive characteristics which set them apart from the blewit. Webcaps are not perfumed like the blewit, which has a strong, citrus scent. Webcaps also have a rusty brown spore print, often seen as a dirty mark on the stem, as the spores stick to what was left of the veil. On younger webcap specimens you can normally still see the spiderweb-like covering, which attaches the stem to the gill. This can look like a thick cobweb has formed under the cap – almost like the fake Halloween cobwebs you see towards the end of October. Another type of mushroom, the clouded agaric, can also look superficially like an older blewit. This species is known to make some people sick, but as they always lack the lilac colouring on the gills, cap and stem, it is easy to tell the difference.

For those new to foraging, stick to younger blewits which still have their vivid lilac colour to the gills and will lack the cobweb-like structure that joins the cap to the stem. The field blewit (Lepista personata) and the sordid blewit (Lepista sordida) can both look a lot like the wood blewit too, but as they are both edible this should not pose a problem. Sordid Blewits look most like wood blewits but are thinner-fleshed and a bit smaller. Field blewits have a lilac stem, but paler gills and a brown cap.

Blewit ID Checklist

What you’re looking for:

• Younger specimens with lilac gills
• Fibrous lilac markings on stem
• No webbing coving the gills (Cortina)
• Lilac cap turning brown with age
• Can form troops (lines of mushrooms)
• No rusty brown marks on the stem
• Off-white to pale pink spore print
• Perfumed citrus scent that smells like orange juice

Where to find them

A saprophytic mushroom, blewits are best found hidden amongst leaf litter as their mycelium (the underground, living part of the fungi) helps to break down fallen leaves. Although they aren’t fussy about the types of leaves they digest, they do best under deciduous trees with copious amounts of leaf cover, such as oak, beech and chestnut.

Preparing blewits

Blewits don’t agree with everyone, so always try a small amount first (one cooked mushroom) before eating an entire dish. They are full of moisture so dry fry them first, allowing the liquid to evaporate before adding butter or olive oil to the pan. They are a meaty mushroom, lending themselves to risottos and pasta dishes or a good pâté.

Vegan Mushroom Pâté Recipe

A lot of mushroom pâté recipes rely heavily on cream or some kind of fat. This one is purposely low in fat, making it a healthier choice for vegans and non-vegans alike. The recipe also works with shop-bought field or chestnut mushrooms if you don’t find any blewits.

Ingredients

• 300g blewits 
• 100g cashew nuts
• 300ml plant milk (e.g. almond, oat or soy) 
• 4 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes 
• Pinch of sea salt
• Tarragon
• Chives 
• A little olive oil

Method

1. In a dry pan, fry the blewits until all the moisture has evaporated.
2. Add a little olive oil and throw in the cashew nuts. Continue to fry for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the nutritional yeast flakes and the plant milk. 
4. Cook until the plant milk has been absorbed by the mushrooms. 
5. Add the herbs and blitz in a food processor for a couple of minutes or until it reaches a pâté-like consistency – you may need to add a dash of olive oil if it all coagulates into one lump.
6. Serve with crusty bread, crackers or a jacket potato. 

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Dave Hamilton is the author of Where the Wild Things Grow: the Foragers Guide to the Landscape, published by Hodder and Stoughton. He has led the Guardian Masterclass in foraging and currently works as an instructor for Britain’s leading foraging course company, Wild Food UK.