Our Indian Summer seems to be over with grey skies reigning once more. Autumn
is slowly staking its claim over September.
These fungi pop up in the same place every year. At first they were a tempting
pristine white but now they have taken on a decidedly ominous appearance, as
though warning off anyone who would be bold enough to consider picking them.
We seem to have lost the knowledge of which mushrooms are edible and which aren't.
I remember how field mushrooms used to be a seasonal treat when I was growing up,
delicious simmered in milk with a knob of butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. I
knew the best fields where the flat capped field mushrooms could be gathered, still
damp with dew in the early morning. I haven't gone mushroom hunting in years but I
know that houses now stand in some of the fields where I once gathered these tasty
fungi.
There are lots of other edible mushrooms and fungi but I don't know which ones
they are. The Eastern Europeans who came to work in Ireland during the Celtic Tiger
often gather these gifts from nature in local forests.