Qinghe

Mushroom Picking Notes

Article | Qinghe

My hometown is the tallest family in our village. Next to the house and behind the house are dense pine forests.

Every late spring or early summer, after a rain, various mushrooms emerge from the soil. This is a great time to pick wild mushrooms.

Children in the mountains are born with the ability to identify various foods from nature. Facing all kinds of mushrooms with different colors, although I don’t know what they are called, I can accurately judge which ones are edible and which ones are poisonous.

At that time, every time it rained, I would be extremely happy because I could go pick mushrooms again. As soon as the sky cleared up, I couldn't wait to put on a small backpack and set off towards the places where various mushrooms "haunted".

In the pine forest, the most abundant species are pine mushrooms. This kind of mushroom is more "cunning". They are generally not exposed to the outside world, but are a little shy. But no matter what, they can't escape my fierce eyes. I know they usually grow under thick pine needles. Wherever there are raised pine needles, there are usually pine mushrooms hiding underneath. At this time, you need to carefully peel off the covered pine needles with your hands, and then the brown pine mushrooms will reveal their true appearance in Lushan. I gently held the umbrella cover with my hand and pulled it out with a little force, and a complete, oily pine mushroom was in my bag.

In the open space of the pine forest, there are some dark white lime-like mushrooms from time to time, which we call lime mushrooms. This kind of mushroom doesn't taste as smooth as the pine mushroom, but when fried with other mushrooms, its crunchy texture is also a good addition. In addition, there are all kinds of unnamed miscellaneous tree mushrooms. Everything that is edible is put into the basket on the back. However, when I encounter those mushrooms that are very small and haven’t fully grown yet, I usually leave them until they grow up and then pick them again.

In fact, the method to identify whether mushrooms are poisonous is very simple. Adults told me that anything that doesn't look bright in color and doesn't look particularly showy can be eaten. If you see a mushroom like this: the color is very attractive, it looks very tall, or there are thick "white hairs" on the mushroom stem, don't pick it. Nine times out of ten, it is poisonous. Perhaps, this is also the case in life. If you are justified, don't speak loudly and have a lower posture, and others may look at you more favorably.

Pick the mushrooms back, blanch them in boiling water, rinse the sand and soil carefully, cut them into small pieces at will, add some green chili peppers and salt and fry them in oil, it will be delicious Stir-fried wild mushrooms leave a fragrant aroma on your lips and teeth and a long aftertaste.

Not all wild mushrooms grow in mountains and forests. If you are lucky, you may even find a cluster of Coprinus comatus in the vegetable patch. This kind of mushroom has a pointed top in the middle, which is gray in color, and the handle looks meaty, like a chicken drumstick. Using Coprinus comatus to make soup, you can really taste the flavor of chicken soup. I still remember one year when I was extremely lucky. A huge cluster of Coprinus comatus grew in my vegetable patch, enough to fill a basket. Although we didn't pick them clean and left them with soil with roots and some small mushrooms, for some reason, they didn't grow back. Perhaps, having grown so much at once, it was just too much effort.

Sometimes there are so many mushrooms that I can’t eat them all at once, which doesn’t stop me. Boil a pot of water, blanch the picked mushrooms, wash them a little, and dry them in the sun to make dried mushrooms. When mushrooms are no longer growing on the mountain, and you want to eat them, soak them in hot water and wash them clean, and then you can eat them again.

Later, although I could buy a variety of artificial mushrooms in the wet market, I always felt that they were not as delicious as the wild mushrooms I picked in the mountains when I was a child.

Perhaps the mushrooms at that time contained the joy of labor!