Mushroom Picking Parties

Get a book and be very careful. I've picked wild mushrooms, but only after research. It's true that mushroomy people give away no secrets. They don't want to kill you by letting you eat the wrong ones, but they won't help you find the right ones.

I spent years of my childhood participating in mushroom picking parties with my parents and their Polish friends in Australia. We collected ridze and maszlaki (I don't even know what they are called in English). My mum would pickle the ridze when she got home and the house would stink like mushrooms for days after. The maszlaki got dried. I now live on a property and every year still collect all the ridze and maszlaki on my property and give them to my mum. They aren't to my liking for eating, but my folks love them and my kids and I love to pick them for Babcia and Dzia Dzia but we are broken hearted when we find only stems left growing on the roadside out the front!

My wife and I will be in Gdansk in early September, for a couple of weeks. We can't wait to go mushroom picking.

SOmeone sent me the URL for this forum. Looking through the messages, I'm reminded of the time I was in Poland when I was 21. I was visiting some friends of my father and they took me out mushroom hunting. I had never eaten a mushroom in my life and never intended to, and was joyful when we found no mushrooms on that particular outing. However, on the way back to their flat, they bought some and cooked them - and I felt obligated to taste them. They weren't as bad as I thought they would be but I didn't eat many.

Years later, I love mushrooms at least some kinds. I have a Shiitake log that produces a couple of batches per year.

Remember folks - that some mushrooms may look identical to ones you know in your homeland but be poisonous in a different part of the world. So make sure to get help from some locals before you eat things in a new environment. For example:

Mushroom Poisoning among Laotian Refugees -- 1981

cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001107.htm

I'm going Saturday with experienced mushroom pickers. we'll be in the in the Tucholskie Bory, south of Gdansk. It's been cool and rainy, so I'm hopeful that there will be plenty of mushrooms to be had.

I used to pick MM in the UK... many years ago, I found they are abundant on the edges of golf courses at certain times of year just after rainfall. I used to look for ones shaped like nipples and they must be dark underneath, not light. No expert on this though and if in doubt, dont do it as the consequences could be fatal. Other than that have no mushroom picking experience, but would love to know how to pick wild mushrooms for cooking.

Take someone with you who knows their stuff - my friends know 3 or 4 varieties and stick only to those. Or, in the Krakow food markets, the mushrooms are all checked by an expert before being allowed to be sold.

the psilocybin that grows in cow ****... doesnt it come from milk cows only?

they don't just grow in cow manure.


mushroom season is really close now.. maybe a week or two depending on temps etc.. can't wait. yum.

Many years ago when in Poland on a mushroom-picking outing I was told by an old mushroom picker that "all mushrooms are edible, but some only once !"