X-Ftn-To: Gwailoh-9 

Gwailoh-9  wrote:
>its not the one i was thinking of, looks good though.

Very tasty, too. :)

>Say, Is it common for people in your area to collect wild mushrooms
>for food?  

Yes, reasonably so. Unfortunately, there are people who know very
little about mushrooms and still collect them, and so lots of people
get poisoned. Fortunately, only one or two species are actually lethal
(amanita phalloides and cortinarius orellanus), and fortunately the
majority recovers with no serious consequences. If they come to the
doctor in time, that is. There are antidotes.

>Did you learn from you family, or was it a hobby you've
>developed on your own?  

Well, my family used to walk through forests and parks when I was
still a kid, and since we used to find lots of mushrooms, we bought
several books about them and learned together. I knew about 200
species when I was younger; now it's about 50.
We collected only the species that taste excellent, about 10 of them,
and if there were mushrooms at all, we could always find enough to
make a huge lunch. However, cleaning a huge mountain of mushrooms from
the dirt and ants and small snails and stuff, after an 8 hour walk,
well, I'd say it was the least favourable part of the experience. :))
Finding them was always more fun than eating them, because they are
often hidden under the leaves and branches any you need to train you
eyes in order to find anything at all. Great fun for kids.

>In Canada & Australia, such a thing would be _very_ uncommon.  

I find this surprising; actually, this is good news, coz if I go to
Canada, I'll be sure that a million of folks didn't turn every leaf in
a forest looking for them; I'd probably pick enough for lunch in five
minutes. :)) No such luck here. But, recently I'm a bit cautious about
mushrooms, they don't fit in my diet and I tend to leave them out...
too much tellural prana. 

>foraging.  It would be great if our culture here supported it!

:) Make your own culture, then. But be sure to read lots of
illustrated books about them, the ones written by the guys with lots
of experience. Once you get the hang of it, it can be extreme fun, and
you get to walk through the nature a lot.

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Homepage: http://www.danijel.org