Comments | finella_c: Wild food

finella_c

Wild food

May 11, 2009 15:47

Went mushrooming yesterday, on the edge of the Dandenongs. My Polish aunt A. decided that the season was right, and the weather gracefully obliged. We set out with a mission: if we couldn't find enough Suillus luteus, Christmas 2009 was off! I didn't know this before, but A. explained that, in Poland, the liturgical season of Advent -- like Lent ( Read more... )

environment, food, family

Comments 5

(The comment has been removed)

finella_c May 14 2009, 04:29:53 UTC

:-) Yes, I was a bit anxious at first, too. I don't think I'd feel confident to go again on my own yet, without A.'s expert knowledge / years of experience to hand. Maybe a few more shepherded outings are needed first.

Then there was the moment when we sat down to the kitchen table with a beer, forks in hand, in front of this steaming plate of orange mushrooms. I won't deny I felt a slight nervous anticipation. But nervousness dissipated over the first half hour of satisfied chomping.

reverancepavane May 11 2009, 08:45:34 UTC

Taking a small field guide to mushrooms along can be helpful for another reason that friends of mine have found. It helps convince police, whose training in mycology is often sadly lacking, that they are not magic mushrooms...

finella_c May 14 2009, 04:34:43 UTC

Heheh. I can imagine that! I wouldn't recognise one if I saw it. You know, I have never been even slightly tempted to partake, partly due to my neurological issues, and partly because, well, reading Lewis Carroll provides more than enough psychedelic excitement for a small finella_c. :-)

bungo May 12 2009, 18:58:26 UTC

(Resonating off several parts of this.)

Mushrooming is pretty common around these parts too. It wierds me out a bit, but not as much as berry-picking; we were carefully trained that all berries have been poisoned.

T. and I were in Görlitz / Zgorzelec on Easter Sunday. You could spot the Poles by their slightly-too smartly-dressed appearance and general sense of occasion.

finella_c May 14 2009, 04:48:51 UTC

Poisoned! Is that a spraying, weed-control thing?

T. and I were in Görlitz / Zgorzelec on Easter Sunday. You could spot the Poles by their slightly-too smartly-dressed appearance and general sense of occasion.Catholic Europe, eh. Similarly, in Luzern, the Easter before last, I was amazed by how much Easter was celebrated as a public occasion - can't remember if I wrote about it on LJ at the time. There were Easter-themed shop window decorations, 'Easter' baby animals in the market for children to pet, florists had special Easter floral decorations for the home, etc. Naturally, I enjoyed this very much; for me there was a sense of cultural familiarity and even a kind of "homecoming" that I don't often experience in Australia, certainly not in the context of the public sphere (our normative cultural Christianity is somehow not culturally Catholic ( ... )