Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Mushroom time

 
During our hike last weekend we managed to find several clusters of mushrooms. Mostly we found Bitter Boletes already uprooted by early-bird hunters (see above), but we also ran into some slightly old edibles that got added to our basket to take home for soup.

Bitter Boletes catch the eye because they look like their cousin, the Penny Bun. One bite of the Bitter, and you'd know the difference. It isn't poisonous but it is spit-provokingly untasty. You don't have to take a nibble to tell the two apart though. Just look at the netting around your mushroom's stem. The Bitter's stem looks like it is wrapped in black netting, while the Penny Bun sports white hose instead.

In Czech, a Bitter Bolete is Hřib hořký. If you don't recognize Penny Bun, think Porcini.

4 comments:

Lucy said...

Hey, that's early! I wondered about heading down to the horse mushroom field the other day, but though it was probably too soon. Last year was hopeless for mushrooms and chestnuts. Lovely to hear about your foraging!

Julia said...

It's definitely the season in the mountains now, and all the rain really helps things along too.

We'll be heading to your neck of the woods in two weeks, do you think the mushrooms would be out along the coast by then?

Kelly said...

We need to go mushrooming this year! Can you get to forests by bus? :)

Julia said...

As long as they aren't already hunted down, you can get to mushrooms by metro from Prague! Bus for sure, and also train. By train is one of my favorite ways to go, because you can catch a train to one station and walk to the next to come home. No back tracking and there's sure to be a pub along the way.