Forage & Feast

They say there are two sides to every story.

When it comes to wild mushroom tourism, the two sides are the forage and the feast. And when they come together, you get an unforgettable culinary experience.

Ontario, with its vast boreal forests and culinary prowess, is a prime spot to experience the best of both sides of this fascinating tale.

In the Haliburton Highlands, visitors can forage with a local expert in the afternoon and dine on the spoils with creations made by a local chef in the evening.

The Forage

It is the start of fall in the Haliburton Highlands and Stephan Lukacic is prepping for one of his popular wild mushroom identification workshops.

"Around this time of year, we are just moving into prime time for wild mushrooms," he says. "The really top, choice, edible, gourmet mushrooms are starting to pop this time of year."

Stephan is a passionate outdoorsman, who hunts, farms, forages and fishes for his food — and he shares his tactics readily with those who want to learn through his workshops and his writing.

Stephan spent years living and working abroad in the music industry, but an autoimmune diagnosis caused him to revamp his life and find healing through food.

"It is the most powerful medicine," Stephan says. "Most people don't know that wild foods are generally of a much higher nutritional density and general goodness."

Mushrooms are a particular passion of his. Foraging for fungi has enjoyed a renaissance of late, putting Stephan's knowledge in high demand.

"I'm travelling all over the province now just giving (mushroom) identification workshops because people want to get out into the forest and just learn how to do things for themselves," he said.

And when he posts his beautiful baskets of edible fungi on platforms like Instagram, Stephan gets inundated with requests from chefs all over the world wanting to purchase them.

"They're saying, 'I'll send you 500 Euros for that basket of mushrooms, FedEx it to me,'" he says. "It happens all the time. But I never do it. I don't sell mushrooms, I sell knowledge."

Stephan teaches about fungal ecology, how to recognize safe mushrooms and how to avoid getting sick from eating the wrong type. After 90 minutes, participants go home armed with a booklet and the confidence to step out into the forest themselves.

"The thing you have to understand about wild mushrooms is they are all little chemical factories. Every species makes a different little subset of chemical compounds and some of those compounds are delicious, some can help us to heal, some can make us sick, some can send you to the hospital and some can kill you dead," he says.

"You have to know which ones are which and there's a very reliable, safe, modern methodology, based on science, that I teach."

A big part of getting started in foraging mushrooms is gaining confidence. But it is easy to get addicted to the incredible taste of these wild fungi.

"Most folks have eaten one or two species of mushrooms their entire life. Those little mushrooms you see in the grocery store, for example, that's agaricus bisporus and that's the little white button mushroom, the cremini mushroom, the portobello mushroom, it's all the same species, they've just let them grow to different sizes and given them different amounts of light," he said.

"In our Ontario forests there are hundreds of edible species, some of which are the most sought-after gourmet mushrooms in the world."

The Feast

The Haliburton Post House sits along the shores of Kashagawigamog Lake. It is a nearly century-old property that has recently been meticulously updated and modernized by new owners Joel Baker and Heather Milstein, who purchased it in 2018.

The high-end property has modern cottages, beautifully appointed lodge rooms, a fitness studio and a dry sauna — and spectacular views of the tree-lined lake.

At the heart of the property is the sunroom, which is how the staff refer to the spacious dining room. It is a fitting name as the many surrounding windows let in the warm glow of natural light. In colder weather, a fireplace provides even more coziness.

At the helm in the kitchen is Executive Chef Dan Sanders, who brings the farm-to-table philosophy to life at the Post House with his fresh, modern and locally sourced menus.

Dan is a fan of using wild mushrooms as part of his dining offerings at the Post House to showcase the flavours of the forest.

When he creates menus in conjunction with Stephan, for workshop guests who go out to forage, he includes the freshly picked mushrooms into his four-course feasts.

This fall, Dan and Stephan have teamed up to create such an opportunity for guests at the Post House. Joel is excited to see what Dan creates for the feast as he knows it will be a memorable meal because that's the high-quality food for which the Post House has become known.

"Dining here is more of an experience than a meal," Joel says. "It is creative and it is delicious."

Stephan concurs: "If you love to eat mushrooms, it doesn't get any better than this."