Trompette Des Morts

I believe it is Halloween night in America. Here in France, Halloween was imported from America and had a brief period of popularity in the 1990's, but it seems to have gone out of style. It's not a traditional French holiday and it had more to do with marketing.
Actually, the French Holiday is tomorrow, November 1, La Toussaint, All Saints Day.
It really is one of the biggest Holidays of the year for the French. Traditionally, everyone goes back to the place their family lives and honors the dead. Graves are cleaned and the cemetaries are spruced up and everyone buys chrysanthemums, lots of them and the graves are all decorated. It is a time of family reunion.
La Toussaint is a major holiday in most traditionally Catholic countries. It changes with the culture, but basically it is a day of family and honoring one's ancestors.
In Mexico, families go to the graveyards and have picnics and there is a few eleborate dishes that are associated with the custom. Traditionally, a apart of the meal is prepared for the ancestors. The children have special treats including the famous decorated skulls made out of sugar. The skulls seem to be very much related to Aztec imagery.
Today, I took my dog, JJ for a walk in the forest that surrounds me and brought a plastic bag in anticipation of discovering the mushrooms that seem to appear around La Toussaint, Les Trompette des Morts (Craterellus Cornucopioides). Yes, the translation is the Horns of Death.
A very alarming name for a very delicious member of the chantrelle family. The little trumpets grow in leaf litter on the forest floor and once you discover one, if you start to rally look, you will discover hundreds.
They are dark brown/black with an ashy grey outer surface and stem. They are impossible to mistake for any other mushroom, except for another member of the chantrelle family, not as common, the Chantrelle cendree, which is equally as delicious.
They have a faint odor and and a full mushroom flavor with some of the fruitiness of the yellow chantrelles. They dry extremely well and I have found that drying seems to enhance their flavor. When you want to use them, just rehydrate them in warm water.
The water can be used to enhance the flavor of what you are cooking, like a mushroom boullion.
I found almost a kilo today before it started to rain and perhaps I will return tomorrow and find more. There are a lot of different ways to use them in cuisine. In French country cooking, they are often referred to as "The Poor Man's Truffle." You can use them in pates and terrines, but they are not the same at all as a black truffle. You can use them to stuff a veal or pork roast. Take a pork or veal roast, and slice into it horizontally and make it into one flat piece...unroll it as it were, then cover the surface with the Trompettes and roll it back up and tie it up.
One recipe I intend to make tomorrow is a Risotto.
It's fairly simple. You will need for 4 people:

30 grams of Trompette Des Morts dried...
An onion
15 grams of Butter
400 grams of Arborio Rice
A glass of dry white wine
1 liter of hot boullion...beef or chicken
30 grams of parmesan cheese

This takes around 50 minutes. First rehydrate the mushrooms in some warm water for 10 minutes and dry them. Chop the onion finely. Melt the butter in a pan and add the onion and let it saute until the onion is clear, do not brown it. Add the rice and let it cook with the onion in the butter until it is all coated with the butter. At this point, add the glass of wine.
Then add a some of the boullion, let it cook until it is absorbed, then add some more.
The addition of the boulion is the only really touchy part...some times you have to add more, sometimes less. You want the rice to be a little toothsome or "al dente", not cooked to a mush.
When the rice is almost done, add the mushrooms and the parmesan cheese.
The cheese melts into the rice and sets it a bit as it cooks a bit longer.

Serve this hot with some parmesan on the side.
Bon apetit, bien sur!