It is a nice sunny day today and this may presage a new harvest of wild mushrooms. My wife is teaching me the basics of mushroom picking. So far, we have picked enough mushrooms to enjoy a dish of wild mushroom soup and another dish of potatoes and mushrooms both were delicious.
I have to admit that I was a bit nervous at first. I had never picked mushrooms in Canada and there are many poisonous mushrooms and a few deadly poisonous mushrooms. However, Ekaterina has been picking mushrooms since the age of six with her mother. True, this was in Russia and I hoped that the mushrooms of northern British Columbia were comparable to those in the Komi Republic. I took my courage in hand and did eat the mushrooms with relish. What can I say, I am hooked. We will return to the trails around Prince George and will keep an eye out for edible mushrooms. With the rain we had and a few days of sun, there should be many mushrooms growing in the woods around the city.
The experience highlights how little most people know about the nature that surrounds them. All over the trails there are innumerable berries and mushrooms, yet few people (including me) know what is edible. Yet, throughout most of human history, we have relied on our knowledge of the natural world arround us to survive and thrive. Now, few of us could survive more than a few days in a forest in the summer, a forest that is overflowing with a variety of foods both nutritious and delicious.
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