Back in the Alps in northern Italy, where I come from, fall season means chanterelle season. Chanterelles are a wild forest delicacy, golden looking, with a fleshy cap and body, and a vaguely peach-like aroma. Contrary to most mushrooms that you would find on the shelfs of grocery stores, they cannot be grown commercially. My favourite way to cook them is to make chanterelle-speck risotto. Speck is a kind of cured meat that is typical of the Italian region I come from (Trentino Alto-Adige). It is obtained by curing a boned pork leg in salt and spices like laurel, pepper and juniper, then slow-smoking it with smoke from pine or juniper wood for several months. Put all these jewels together, and you get the chanterelle-speck risotto that I have been eating every fall when growing up. Chanterelles and speck may be difficult to come by in the US, but you can easily substitute shiitake for chanterelles and diced pancetta for speck. The nice thing about this recipe is that it will work perfectly well with them too! <br /> <br />

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