MUSHROOMING INTEREST

I have had a lot of queries about fungi-foraging, or mushroomhunting, recently and it certainly is turning out to be a good year for wild mushrooms, with the recent wet weather encouraging the fungi to flourish.

Very little energy is required by a mushroom to develop, as basically the cells just enlarge with water. A mushroom has pretty much the same amount of cells when it is young as when it’s mature, and rather then increasing cells to grow, the cells just enlarge. A mushroom can increase in size as fast as water can be pumped into its cells, which is why rain is a great asset to a mushroom-hunter at this time of year. Just overnight, a mushroom can grow from a pinhead to a large pickable mushroom.

And that’s why “mushrooming” is used to describe something growing quickly.

My own “mushrooming” knowledge is thanks to mid-Walesbased fungi-forager, and author of Fungi Forays, Daniel Butler.

Daniel is keen to encourage us all to be braver when it comes to picking and eating wild mushrooms on the basis that last year five people were killed in bucket-related accidents and 91 people died falling out of bed but no-one died from eating a poisonous mushroom.

I have been much more careful around buckets since learning that fact, and it is this refreshing and reassuring approach that will endear you to the fungi-forager.

He explains: “The best beginner’s mushroom meets three criteria. Firstly, choose something that is very distinctive in appearance like Chicken of the Woods (the yellow dinner-plate fungi which grows on oak trees).

“Secondly, make sure there are no possible dangerous lookalikes (this is where Fungi Forays comes in very handy). And thirdly, if you do finally pluck up courage to eat what you have harvested, make sure you get the maximum ‘taste reward’.

“The porcini or cep is a good one to start with. These are one of the few mushrooms that taste better dried than fresh, so are good to pick now and store.

“Beginners are often intimidated by too many varieties so it is better to slowly build up a repertoire of what you know and what you like. They all taste different and you probably won’t like most of them. The Puffballs are foolproof, you can’t get them wrong but I don’t think they are worth the taste.”

Having been foraging for fungi for over 18 years, Daniel promotes Wales as a mushroom Mecca as so much of the land is untouched and unimproved.

It also has a much better mushroom climate than Europe, being damp and mild.

A little surprisingly, the most common mushroom in Wales is the porcini or cep, with coniferous forests yielding good hauls every autumn.

I think the fact that they are often well-camouflaged, and therefore overlooked, would mislead you to believe the field mushroom is the most common.

It’s probably just the most visible. Having become a bit of a cep super-sleuth I can assure you they are well worth hunting for and once you have found a good spot for them, they will almost certainly come back in the same place next year.

Daniel has also collated a series of essays as a Kindle book, A Mushroom is a Misunderstood Rose. Dispelling many fears and myths, it is also packed with fascinating fungi facts. Apparently, on a cellular level, mushrooms are closer to humans than plants. I can think of a few humans they resemble closer than others!

You can find out more, maybe just in time to get on one of his foraging days and sign up for his fabulous newsletter at www. fungiforays.co.uk