Picking Mushrooms

For a while now Ivan has been getting photos from his friends who’ve been out picking mushrooms in the woods. And he asked us whether we do it, and if not, why not?

Our answer, of course, was that as bona fide (very bona indeed!) city slickers we wouldn’t know which ones we could pick safely. But seeing as we live so close to the wood, we were happy to give it a try as long as Ivan and Olha made sure we only picked the right ones.

So it was, that, last Sunday we set off with Ivan, Olha and our friend Otti. And, within about 50 m after leaving the bridal path, we came across these “openka” mushrooms which we assured were fine once cooked.

We’d filled the basket and a plastic bag within half an hour, so it was back home with our trophies to clean them up and cook them. And cooking them is very important.

While they were cooking, and I was cooking the evening meal (bangers and mash), Astrid and Otti were busy trying to look up the name of the mushrooms in German but weren’t sure about the results.

Once cooked, the mushrooms produce a really gloopy substance but they smell like mushrooms. We didn’t eat them with the evening meal but on Monday Olha cooked come with some veg in a sauce, and I survived!

The rest were frozen, though I used some on Friday in risotto.

But it wasn’t until yesterday that we were able to be sure what kind of mushrooms they were: I asked Olha to look them up on the Ukrainian Wikipedia and we could either look for the translation, or use the Latin classification.

It worked! The mushrooms are classified as Armillaria mellea, which is one of the possibilities that Astrid came up. These are commonly known in Germany as “Hallimasch”, but also, in a nod to the Latin classification as “honey mushrooms”.

And the reason you need to cook them: there one of the many fungi that contain cyanide!

PS. Since Ivan saw pictures of his friend salmon fishing in America near the Canadian border, he’s desperate to go fishing here. But there’s a problem: in Germany you need to pass a test to get a fishing licence. Of course you do!

Still, were trying to work on a solution for this.