Smart people learn to identify one wild mushroom every year

Martha Organisation recipes show how food-for-free mushrooms can be used to make a delicious meal

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By Jarkko Hakala
     
      Two women wearing red jackets are striding through the now-stripped bilberry bushes in the Luukki outdoor recreation area in Espoo.
      ”Oh, what a pretty cep (Boletus edulis) with an unusually slim stalk”, somebody calls out from between the tussocks and young spruces.
      In a few minutes, the baskets have begun to fill with orange birch boletes (Leccinum Versipelle) and ceps - and, good heavens, what is this? - poisonous amanitas! White amanitas (Amanita virosa) or fly amanitas (Amanita muscaria), the scarlet fly agarics of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland fame.
     
”When we pick amanitas and deadly webcaps (Cortinarius rubellus) for display purposes, other mushroom-pickers look at us with eyebrows up to here and ask us whom we're planning to poison”, laughs Arja Hopsu-Neuvonen, one of the two home economics advisors picking mushrooms in the forest.
     
When one starts to look at the brushwood underfoot with a more trained eye, one’s gaze falls upon delicious gypsy mushrooms (Cortinarius caperatus) that would easily fill all the baskets.
      But we are not supposed to be picking large amounts of mushrooms for the table this time, only specimens.
      This catch will not be eaten, as it will end up in a mushroom exhibition of the Martha Organisation, the purpose of which is to teach people to identify various mushrooms.
      ”And then the mushrooms should be cleaned as well as possible to faciliate recognition”, says advisor Kaisa Härmälä.
     
The two women strongly advise all mushroom-pickers to learn to identify one new mushroom every year.
      Along the paths, there are traces of mushroom hunters gone before us: split, maggot-eaten caps of ceps, and stumps of mushroom stalks.
      Despite the fact that the Luukki area is popular among mushroom-pickers, untouched ceps, slippery jacks (Suillus luteus), and orange birch boletes are still to be found there in abundance.
     
Even sheep polypores (Albatrellus ovinus) and various edible species of brittlegrills (Russulae) find their way into the basket.
      According to the information gathered by the Martha Organisation, this year’s mushroom crop looks really good in most parts of Finland, and new mushrooms are coming up all the time.
     
It is worth the trouble for a mushroom-picker to be active, as thanks to the warm and humid weather, maggots can eat the ceps quickly. Therefore, ceps should be picked already when they are rather small.
      It is also worthwhile to be methodical and to visit the same places several times.
     
     
THREE TIPS FOR A BEGINNER:
     
1. What can you pick?
     
It is well worth the bother to learn how to recognise one new edible mushroom every year.
      It is easy to begin from ceps and brittlegills, as in Finland there are no poisonous mushrooms among them, albeit some of them do not taste that good.
      If necessary, a picker may taste a piece of such mushrooms already while in the forest. Even chanterelles and trumpet or funnel chanterelles are easy to recognise and easy to cook.
      A beginner should never pick any white mushrooms, as among them there could be some dangerous poisonous species.
     
     
2. Mushroom picker’s tools
     
All mushrooms should be put into an airy basket - NOT in a plastic bag.
      A mushroom knife is needed for cleaning.
      It is advisable to buy a good mushroom guide.
      A charged mobile phone is a good safety device for mushroom pickers, and in forests you do not know well, a pocket compass could be handy.
     
     
3. How to handle mushrooms?
     
All mushrooms should be brushed clean and split already in the forest, in case there are maggots.
      The catch has to be cleaned and cooked, deep-frozen, preserved, or dried already the same day in order that it does not spoil.
      Only chanterelles and funnel chanterelles (Cantharellus tubaeformis) last a little longer before they go bad.
     
     
All the mushrooms described here above can be found by their English or Latin names from Wikipedia.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 27.8.2011


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish matsutake mushrooms highly sought after in Japan (31.8.2010)
  Four people hospitalised after eating toxic mushrooms (26.8.2009)

See also:
  Mushroom expert hints that correct timing is more important than knowing the right location (25.8.2009)

JARKKO HAKALA / Helsingin Sanomat
jarkko.hakala@hs.fi