It’s Autumn, and it’s mushroom mania! All around me people are discussing how many buckets they collected at the weekend, how many hours it took to prepare them, how many jars they filled for the winter. The best place to collect a particular sort may be discussed openly by some, but for others mushroom picking is a pastime that demands discretion and a taciturn nature.

In most parts of Russia the forest is not far off, and it’s a trusted provider as well as a place where danger exists (‘don’t go alone!” I was advised so many times). Some years are mushroom years, others for the berries, they re usually alternate. Mushroom picking is an income for some, as you’ll see in any Autumn market. It’s a food source through the winter for rich and poor alike, through the use of preserving methods such as salting, marinating, and drying.

Mushrooming is a favourite pastime of many in Russia and an educational outing for children who are thus introduced to nature on their doorstep. While not everyone could be classed as an expert, I’ve yet to meet a Russian who couldn’t identify at least the most commonly growing edible kinds, which is certainly a far cry from my UK roots! Shape colour and smell are important identifiers, and not only this, but it’s important to know the area you’re picking in. People who have grown up in a particular region know what they expect to find there. There are even some who can enter a forest and tell by the smell if it’s a mushroom forest or not. Some say that if you go to the forest with too many buckets, you’ll scare the mushrooms, and won’t find any!

So what do you need to know? The time of year dictates what mushrooms may be found, starting with morels in spring, through to opyati in November. By far the most prized mushroom is the ‘beliy grib’ or white mushroom, known in the west as porcini, and not white as you may think, but with a round, brown bun-like cap and white flesh and pores below

You need to note carefully which mushrooms grow under what tree. Non-native woods such as maple woods are usually barren, maslyata (slippery jack) occur in pine forests, podberezevniy in birch woods. Mushrooms grow between 3 and 12 days after rain, and you want to catch them when full-grown but not aging. Mushrooming takes a sharp eye and an easy foot, as many hoards are partially concealed beneath the leaf litter close to trees. Never, ever, pick a mushroom to eat unless you’re sure of what it is – best to go with a person who knows the area at least the first few times, and to check all features in a good guide book.

Happy hunting!