Mushroom Picking Parties

One tradition that my family kept alive when the came to America was mushroom picking. In the late summer, we would go to the mountains, have a cookout and grill the boletes mushrooms that we found in the woods. I have taught my daughter how to identify a boletes correctly, even though I have never cooked any for us to try. I am a bit scared of them, even though it's pretty hard to get one of them wrong.
Does anyone or their family still go mushroom picking in the fall? Is the tradition still alive in Poland? What are the types of grzybami that are picked? And, does anyone know what type of mushroom a (sp?) putpynki is? Has anyone ever heard of one that is supposed to only grow in grave yards that is very good to eat? These stories come from my babcia. She never got any of these to show me, so I don't know if they only grow in Poland or over here too. Any good mushroom picking stories would be read with great interest!!

This tradition is alive and well in the countryside around where I live.

Those who choose to go mushroom picking are like the secret service. They will give you no clues as to where the best places to go are. You can be neighbours with someone for a lifetime and they still won't help. Otherwise, these folks will gossip about anything.

I was dragged out (actually quite enjoyed it) at silly o'clock in the morning 4 or 5 times in August to go mushroom picking. Was given a very brief guide as to what to pick and off i went. Needless to say, whatever I picked was viewed with suspicion until someone said is was OK.

Its a good feeling when you walk around aimlessly for 45 minutes and then suddenly find a whopper of a mushroom!

I remember this "tradition" too. Boy - I was so drunk before I could find my first mushroom...

It is very serious business here. We never told anyone where we went picking! You don't want anyone else to get YOUR mushrooms. They would take them all. And the worst thing to see was leftover stem bottoms. That ment that someone HAD already gotten there before you.

My mom had a funny story about that. There was a large mushroom growing between the houses of my grandfather and his neighbor. They would both keep watch on the mushroom to make sure that neither one picked it. They would stand outside and look at it and try to decide if it was ready to pick yet. They almost got into a fight about who got to pick it and when it was ready. This had to be a type growing on wood that kept getting bigger. A regular one would have rotted in a few days, and we prefered them small.

Yes, I remember many funny stories too. Fortunately there was always somebody to buy mushroom from at the end of the day (so that parents should think we were actually picking up mushrooms all day long .

When I was in Krakow last week there were lots fresh mushroom to buy on the markets.
Thinking about everything packed, steriled in England and those mushroom they smelt so nice.

I was only a little suspicious. If someone who was picking them made mistake? Are there any regulations in Poland about selling fresh mushrooms?

I don't think there are any regulations - you eat them on your own risk . But Polish people are said to know which mushrooms are good and which not (usually .

I pick mushrooms in the autralian autumn. In australia we pick kozaki, maslaki and rydze. These grow under pine trees brought here from europe.

Another type of mushroom we get here a lot is the "psilocybe subaeruginosa". These are little blue mushrooms that taste disgusting but make you trip serious balls.

I know my mushrooms very well and have never even made a mistake picking. If you know what you are looking for and how to identify it, you'll be fine.

Australia has a lot of inedible mushrooms which will kill you, such as the death cap and other varieties of "amanita" mushrooms.

But back to picking, there is nothing quite like the feeling or taste of making a meal from wild food that you picked yourself........and then getting super-high off the other mushrooms!!!!!!

Does any one pick "special grzyby" in pl?

Does no one pick magic mushrooms in Polska?

I hear about people who pick mushrooms, eat them and die. Does that ever happen in Poland? They must have different mushrooms here.

I tried to find some but was unsucessfull so far. I was staring at pictures of magic mashrooms before I went to the forest but while I was there wasn't sure anymore what I was picking. I brought home some strange mushrooms and after carefull inspection they had to be thrown away. I did pick a small size bucket of regular eatable mushrooms (podgrzybki) though and was enjoying them for a week adding to everything I cooked.

There is one kind of mushrooms that is poisonous and similar to the eatable ones. I'm thinking about "kozaki". I have heard and read stories about people, usually kids ending up at hospital after eating mushroom. You need to eat a lot to get poisoned though! Some are supposedly very dangerous to your health but they are visibly different from he eatable ones.

ive picked magic mushrooms in the woods around sopot... fly agaric... loads of fun

Magic mushrooms grow in cow sh*t

no... that would be sheep sh*t...

Grows in sh*t

organic... none of this chemical sh*t

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You have mushroom picking parties????????????

That's almost as eccentric as lawn-mower racing in the UK.

We used to pick em out of cow sh*t down in Florida.... it gets u wasted
gotta get them right after it rains.

Major paraniod trips off that stuff....................i ended up on rocking all night on a rocking chair!!!!

I wound up laughing so much my face hurt the next day...hahahaha
oh yeah the trails!!!!... wow that was quite a few years back...

I know that feeling all too well. It becomes impossible to stop laughing if you take enough. Not funny laughing....but deranged, crazy nutcase laughing. I always feel like i have done a million stomach crunches the next day........GOOD TIMES!!!



nah ziomek, the one's we pick in Australia grow in woody land under native trees. I know that many varieties do however grow in various kinds of turds.



Never had fly agaric...they're the red ones with white spots hey? I heard they can give you a mean stomach ache if you don't prepare them properly. What's the trip like compared to psilocybe mushrooms? better/worse?

Lol, I've done probably 3 to 5 thousand M.M's over a few years. I'm talkin' 7 Hr trips with 1-2 days recovery!

Good times indeed but I don't do them now, over-cooked it a little
Try a playing a guitar or something at the time. It's real whacky!
M.M's + PFloyd = Yeah maaan

That's exactly where I was talking about. Florida is loaded with them. My dad lives in live Oak ...in the middle of nowhere

Poland has the same magic mushroom as the UK, certainly in Silesia region anyway, and I am reliable informed that mushrooms were back on the menu lately because of the unseasonable warm weather, nobody told the mushrooms it was nearly Christmas.

Incidentally, in the UK you can find most of the same mushrooms as Poland, I took my [Polish] girlfriend mushroom picking in mid-Wales last Autumn and she was at home recognising the edible mushrooms.

yeah... alice in wonderland style... i prefer the smaller shrooms that we find in the uk

You need to go with some one who knows where to look and what to look for, otherwise you will never find them....either that or you'll poison yourself.



like liberty caps? i heard you have to eat like 100 of those to get high. The "Blue Meanie" and "Goldtop" mushrooms we get in australia are so strong that you only need like 10 or 15 to trip serious balls.



Don't they make you feel sick? I was under the impression that there is no psilocybin in amanita muscaria (fly agaric). What is the trip like? I've never taken them.

man... i was like with these crazy polish dudes and they were like hey dude smoke some of this crazy **** and lets go for a walk in the forest... and i was like yeah... far out man... wow... and they were like yeah... this is the crazy organic ****... lets take it home and fry it up and stuff... and i was like yeah man... wow... so we all went home and like they got the frying pan out an **** man... so it was like loads of crazy polish hippies and **** man... wow...

still haven't quite come down hey ziom?

how can you tell if they are the right ones too eat