Foraging for wild mushrooms: a child's game

Rembember the giant monster mushroom in our first year of blogging? That was the last surviving mushroom at the end of the season. This year, we're here at the beginning of mushroom season (with all the rain, it began early) and we have the happy surprise to get a handful of them right on our door step.

Talk about a local 100-mile diet, this was more like a 10-steps diet!

Home-delivered mushrooms, courtesy of Eucalyptus tree stump (cc) OSJ

I'd been reading about the behind the scenes of wild food foraging and mushroom pickers back in Canada when a bunch of little mushroom buds popped up in front of my door. Time to call the nephews for some food-appreciation class.

I've found that the    alleged yucky-factor of veggies disappears when kids have a chance to see the whole process, from the little seed that sprouts to when they pick the fruits. Involving them in the production of food generates some sense of ownership and pride in collaborating to provide food. Or something like that.

So, after helping them 'discover' the mushrooms and waiting for a couple of days for the mushrooms to grow to an edible size, we picked them by cutting, not uprooting, so that they would grow again next year.

Then, off to processing (coming next)!

Enough for everyone to get a taste (cc) OSJ

Cutting carefully and leaving the smallest ones
to grow a couple of days more (cc) OSJ