Its raining these days indiscriminately. A sign of winter to come, when precipitation changes from water to icy flakes or hail. Before land gets covered in sheets of white, me and a blockmate, Honza decided to walk on the slushy, moss ridden forest bed in our vicinty looking for mushrooms.
Honzas from Czech Republic and he loves the taste of wild mushrooms. Off we went, towards the canopy with a polythene bag to fill with the lil' umbrella like bounty. He said that he has limited knowledge of edible mushrooms and that he's still training his eye to be the master picker. I, on the other hand, look for chances like this to take pictures and write funny blogs. It also makes a great outing on gray sundays. The forest area is exactly about 25 metres from our block. The day was sunny and bright and we started at 5 PM sharp.
To give you and idea of the dead foliage ridden forest floor, Honzas picture here demonstrates how limber he had become at the sight of the first edible mushroom.
Honza is a man of patience, or atleast can't vent his emotions out at me because, fortunately for me, we only have the english language in common and he is not comfortable with it. Great success.
This mushroom that I happened to pick and pretend to inspect seems really tasty. The top was pale and the gills beneath for some reason looked very tasty and healthy. Deep inside, my post graduate diploma in human nutrition reminds me that mushrooms have no nutrional value, only organoleptic pleasures.
Honza quickly says to me, " Dont be fooled by the exterior looks". Atleast, I am guessing thats what he wanted to say, trying to sound like my Zen master.
This nasty looking slimy shroom caught his eye. To me it seemed anything but edible. But he decides whether to bag it depending on the underside of the umbrella.
If its spongy to look at if you press down on it, it should turn to a shade of dark blue. And that means its the edible mushroom he knew.
The inspector at work- for some reason he doesn't rip them out of the ground and then inspect to see if its baggable or not. He leans to the ground level, gently looking at the underside.
Why not rip 'em, then throw it away. They are afterall, only mushrooms.
At this point in out hunt, we had only bagged two mushrooms.
It was like he heard my thoughts- the next mushroom he inspected was ripped out of the ground, inspected and then thrown away.
Honza was real picky. Pun intended here. I hadn't found anything impressive of whatever size. I wanted to find a mushroom that he'd approve of and say, " You are good!". That didn't happen.
This picture is me pleading Honza to bag the old, sorry ass of a mushroom. He didn't budge.
He said, " Ees no good. Look like ant eat it".
GADS!
This one in particular was really inviting. Honza said that his trained eye can only recognise these ones and that the others could have possibly been edible.
I did try to pee him off with my repetitive question. He warded me off with a smile.
At this point, I was borderline bored and began to take picture of every kind of mushrooms.
Heres me with a bright white pair of trainers.
Like I said, anything with any sort of shroom.
This shroom in particular was edible, he said. This one I had my serious doubts about cos when you pushed the top of it, fine brown powder dispersed out. Even after I pointed it out to him, he said he knew it was definitely edible and also tasty.
I told him to not use that nasty umbrella in the stew he'd later promised to make for us. He giggles.
On the way back, there is no regrets or disappointment as Honza knows that the stew that will derive of this in future will be lip smackin' good.
He did try to blame the climate and that the rainfall wasnt enough to get the lil' umbrellas opening up. I intend to join in on more of such mushroom journeys. Readers should well be ready for a part 2 of 'Honzas Umbrellas' ;)
PS- If anyone can tell me, from the pictures, if the mushrooms I had in my hand were edible or not, I'd be grateful.
