loving life in my 50s

Weeks of seemingly endless rain have created bumper crops of mushrooms in our local woods, so when friends invited me to join in the hunt, I couldn’t resist.

“Bring your walking boots and wet-weather gear as there’s going to be lots of mud!” they laughed. I dug around the bottom of my drawer and found my old waterproof pants, thick socks and warm jacket. When I looked for my walking boots, I realised with dismay I’d left them in the other car.

What? No boots?

The chance to spend a couple of hours in the woods, walking and talking with my friends and learning a little about finding fungi was not something I wanted to forego just because I didn’t have the right shoes. I decided my old trainers would be sacrificed in the name of a mushroom feast. And what’s the harm in wet feet for a few hours?

Luckily, Mike had a spare pair of walking boots that unbelievably, fitted me! Just as well, really, as parts of the track through the woods were thick with mud and puddles, and would have been pretty slippery and wet in my old trainers!

Lost in the woods

Birdsong, sunshine, dappled light – and leaves just beginning to turn into my favourite autumnal tones – all seemed to wash over me and pull me right into the moment. It brings another meaning to ‘lost in the woods’ (and I hadn’t even tried a ‘magic mushroom’!).

Sweet chestnuts littered the paths, their green husks chewed open by deer or squirrels. Natalie filled her pocket with the fresh, uneaten chestnuts, ready to roast in a few days (I so love the smell and taste of roasting chestnuts!). And there, hidden under the leaves, ferns and bracken, or popping out from around tree trunks or fallen branches, were mushrooms of all shapes and sizes, the majority of which I’d never seen before.

Knowledge is vital

Apparently in the UK around 15,000 types of wild fungi exist! Many are edible, some inedible and others which are poisonous (even deadly!). They shared a couple of horror stories they’d heard about and for a brief moment or two, I wondered if I really wanted a mushroom feast that much!

It’s pretty obvious Mike and Natalie are passionate about mushroom foraging and their knowledge is extensive – after all, they’ve been doing it for 30 years – and they’re still here! Having already enjoyed several mushroom meals with them without any side-effects whatsoever (well, perhaps a slight fogginess next day – but to be fair, that was more to do with what we drank!), my confidence in their expertise was high.

Mushrooms as large as dinner plates

There were the edible and delicious mushrooms like ceps (aka porcini and penny bun mushrooms) as large as dinner plates (one would feed a family for days!), medusa mushrooms, hedgehog fungus, milkcaps, puffballs, bonnets and porcelain fungus (and that’s just some of what we saw!).

What we definitely did not pick but saw in the undergrowth, were the toxic or inedible fungi disconcertingly called names like the deathcap, destroying angel, the almost surreal looking fly agaric and heaven help us if we were to tread on the foul-smelling stinkhorn!

“It’s a lot like snorkelling on a coral reef,” says Natalie, “the more you look around, the more you start to see.”

And she is right! Within a square metre across the forest floor, there were so many intricately camouflaged mushrooms and other fungi that we could have stepped on them or missed them completely had Mike and Natalie not been such experienced ‘mushroomers’.

Not ‘mushroom’ for more

After a lovely couple of hours in the great outdoors, with a small backpack full of edible mushrooms and feeling pretty content, we headed home. I’ve got to say I’m so glad I accepted Mike and Natalie’s spontaneous invitation – without my own walking boots I so easily could have stayed home and missed all the fun!

One thing I learned about combing the woods for mushrooms is to make sure you only eat wild mushrooms checked by someone who really knows their ‘stuff’. The fried garlic mushrooms and the mushroom omelette we made from our walk in the woods were delicious – and thanks to Mike and Natalie, they were not ‘to die for!’

If you want to learn a little more about mushrooms and other fungi, click here

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