Page 33 - INTRA MUROS December 2020

LIFESTYLE

field book of all – the fifth edition of Sasol.
It’s a 1,2kg blockbuster and introduces a
revolutionary new facet to bird books –
audible bird calls.
Beneath its distribution maps there is now
a barcode which, when scanned by one’s
cell phone, reproduces the bird’s call.
This is the largest Sasol of all – The Larger
Illustrated Guide to Birds of Southern
Africa. It has larger images and updated
distribution maps.
The book’s text has been compiled by an
impressive team: Ian Sinclair, Phil Hockey,
Warwick Tarboton, Niall Perrins, Dominic
Rollinson and Peter Ryan. The meticulous
illustrations are again by Norman Arlott
and Peter Hayman but with additions by
Alan Harris and Faansie Peacock.
This new edition has 10% more pages,
including an initial 21 pages of general
information, while the rest of its 500
pages illustrates almost 1 000 species
of Southern African birds. These include
a handful of species which the average
birder is unlikely to see because they have
seldom strayed into our region. Even the
peacock features, for it has become feral
in parts.

First Field Guide to

Mushrooms of Southern Africa

ere’s a colourful and very unusual can be added raw to salads or to soups and
little stocking-filler for Christmas. It’s stews. What sounds best of all, is to “toss
Ha delightfully innovative hand-sized pieces in seasoned flour then dip them in
book (57 glossy pages) whose title hides beaten egg, sprinkle with bread crumbs
its major attraction. and deep fry until light brown”.

Despite the abundance of wild mushrooms There could be a cluster of them living off
in South Africa, most people I know are a rotting tree stump near you . . .
too scared to pick them and cook them
but they might change their minds after And how about ‘pine ring mushrooms’ that
thumbing through this little book. grow among the roots of pine trees and
are easy to identify “and pleasant when
It recalled for me a dish I had in a local crumbed and fried with onion or added to
restaurant and have sought ever since – in scrambled egg.”
vain. Now I know how, not only to make it,
but to find the mushrooms – for nothing. The book makes it very clear how to
recognise edible and inedible mushrooms
Bearing in mind that a quarter of South as well as poisonous ones.
African households regularly cook wild
mushrooms, maybe it’s time we tuned in. To think, all this time, all these free meals
I’ve been missing!
Take the fan-shaped oyster mushroom
which has a ‘delicious delicate flavour’ and

INTRA MUROS DECEMBER 2020 31