Hunting for 'shrooms

I checked off an item on my bucket list this Autumn. Was it learning something substantial, like Mandarin or the oboe? Nope. Was it completing a new physical feat like, say, an Ironman? Heavens, no. Was it reaching a state of higher consciousness, a-la my favorite poets, the Transcendentalists? *Head shake*.

No, the bucket list item that I checked off with zeal was going mushroom foraging in the Czech wilds!

I told my dear friend Mrs. TyVole that I'd long wanted to hunt for houby (mushrooms) like every red-blooded Czech seems to do in the Fall. It's literally a national past-time here. But I'd been afraid to do so because A) I had no idea where to look and B) I figured I'd pick something violently poisonous.

So Mrs. TyVole kindly enlisted her lovely mother, and we all set out into woods 30km outside of the outskirts of northeast Prague. It was a soggy Sunday morning, which was good since apparently mushrooms love wet weather.

And the woods were magical from the get-go.

True, the mushrooms were rife, but everything I picked was either something the ladies knew was unsuitable or something they didn't recognize.

Mrs. TyVole and her mother wove in and out of the mist, identifying mushrooms and imparting wisdom such as, "The crazy Czechs have been out here since 6 a.m. If you see obvious mushrooms, they aren't good." So we looked for 'shrooms that were a bit more hidden. When they found a good one, they'd slice it open with a knife to check for worms.

Underneath some pine I found this "Fly Agaric" mushroom, which is highly psychoactive; I remember reading about it on a Czech horticulture website. But it's beautiful, no?

 Now and then, we'd hit a road and follow that for a while. The setting was enchanting and I enjoyed just wandering, mushrooms or no mushrooms.

The colors, the textures, the earthy smells... straight out of a Hans Christian Anderson story. Gnomes and fairies could have popped up and it wouldn't have surprised me an iota.

Finally, we hit some fungal winners. After hunting for a good few hours, each of us was able to pick enough gems to provide for a solid mushroom entree dinner. Score!

At the conclusion of our hunt we were thoroughly chilled and quite grubby - and toting rather light cachets of mushrooms. So we settled into a 1950s motorest for soup.

Coincidentally, the motorest was near the former home of one of my favorite Czech authors, Bohumil Hrabal. A good Hrabal quote: "I was always lucky in my bad luck."

I agree - some might consider our small harvest bad luck, but for me, it was enormously rich.

*Consult the Czech Mycological Society for mushroom hunting assistance and check out this Prague TV guide for photos. Don't forget a sharp knife, a clean basket and a big appetite.

Linking up for #traveltuesday with Jessie, Camila, Amy and Jessi!