Field & ForestAug – Oct

Mushroom Foraging

A national habit, not a hobby

Sweden's right of public access lets anyone walk in almost any forest and pick what grows there, which is why this is a national habit rather than a niche hobby. People have spots they do not disclose, and the polite fiction that they were found at random is maintained by everybody.

Two things are wanted above all others. The chanterelle, yellow and apricot-smelling, which comes from late July; and the karljohan — the cep, the porcini — which is the one people drive for.

The skill is not identification so much as knowing where to look. Chanterelles like mossy spruce and blueberry ground; ceps like the edges and the older pine. A guide who knows a forest will fill a basket where you would find nothing.

The rule that matters

You will be taught the small number of dangerous species properly, and the rule that matters: nothing goes in the basket unless the person with you has said what it is. Sweden has a few genuinely lethal mushrooms and they are not exotic.

Take a basket rather than a bag, and a knife. Bags sweat and ruin the day's picking within an hour, which is the kind of detail that only sounds trivial until it happens.

August to October. What comes up depends entirely on the summer's rain, so the answer to what we will find is genuinely unknown until the morning, and that is part of it.

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