Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Mushroom hunting

AMBI footsteps in leaves

Duane Peres is out looking for mushrooms on a cold fall morning in the Villefermoi forest, about sixty kilometers south of Paris.

Peres: Villefernoi- you find absolutely everything here. It?s the best spot in the region for mushrooms. Here?s a little Copernus [fade under]

Peres is originally from New Orleans. Over the thirty years he?s been living in France, he?s become a mushroom specialist?or a mycologist.

After years of observation, he?s able to identify almost any mushroom he comes across.

Peres: What do we have here? What in the world could this be? [fade under]

He IDs them by looking, of course. But also by smelling. Some of the small ones can only be identified under a microscope.

Peres is here to observe. But most people are out looking for lunch? this forest is known for having cepes,-- or porchini--mushrooms. We aren?t finding any of those, but we do come across one, the clytocibea nebulae, which some people like to eat.

Peres: I think the odor is absolutely terrible when they?re cooking. The odor like this is OK [sniff] but when they start to cook like in a frying pan, there?s that sort of underlying odor that comes to the fore, and that?s really [pause] disgusting! [laughs] I have to go outside when people are cooking those things. [Sarah: do they taste good?] Uh, they- you know- There are only about ten mushrooms in France that are really good. Otherwise what people do is they cook them with olive oil and garlic and parsley. And if you can find the taste, great! Or duck grease [Sarah: everything tastes good with that] Practically, yeah. Snails taste good with that!

AMBI forest fade out

AMBI mushroom show fade in

Peres organizes an annual mushroom show with a naturalist group in nearby Fontainbleau. Jean-Pierre Meral, a retired engineer, and member of the group, shows some morel mushrooms, which are rare in this area:

Meral: This one was found here. I found three or four of those- in the springtime. I put out only one, because people steal them.

Most of the dozens of other types of mushrooms on display here are left alone, though.

[Sarah: What do you have here? Your hands are full of mushrooms] Meral: I have- this one is uh- Tricholoma Auratum. Bidao is the local name in the Bordeaux area. I have my family there. When they collect 20 kilograms every day. They eat mushrooms- This mushroom was called very good, excellent. It is. There. Now, there were three dead people and five hospitalized two or three weeks in the Bordeaux area two years ago. And we know what- We know it?s because they had too many mushrooms. So now the conclusions are this may be toxic if you eat too much. So here, you see, we say, poisonous, toxic. If you go to the shows in Bordeaux- they say edible.

Peres: Very small percentage of mushrooms are edible- and good. Because edible could mean that they don?t poison you. And if they don?t poison you, sure you could eat them!

Out of the six thousand in the Fontainebleau forest, only about twenty edible?and good.

You have to be careful to avoid the toxic ones. Most won?t kill you; they?ll just make you very ill. Though the ones that do kill you?like the Amanita Phalloides, known as the death cap?do so quickly.

Peres: The typical scenario at the hospital is: ?Ooooh, it hurts, oooooh! It hurts so much. Yes, we ate mushrooms. But it wasn?t he mushrooms, they were very good!? Because in fact the Amanita Phalloides has a very good taste.

Peres says he used have people taste tiny slivers of the Amanita Phalloides, and then he?d explain how poisonous they were- a memorable lesson, he says.

Peres: But the Societ? Mycologique de France, the French Mycological society, asked me to stop doing that [laugh] Yeah.

AMBI mushroom show

At the mushroom show, all kinds are on display, sitting in plastic containers on tables. Peres picks up a box full of small mushrooms with thin stems and domed, pinkish caps: Mycena Rosea

Peres: Mycena Rosea are- Here you?re not supposed to talk about these sorts of things. We say that it?s toxic. But in fact it?s hallucinogenic?.

French law forbids the mycologists at the mushroom show from talking about hallucinogenic mushrooms. Though he says they sometimes point people in the right direction, for their own safety.

Peres: We tell the discretely [laugh] The object is not to let them pick hallucinogenic mushrooms, but to prevent them from picking similar mushrooms that could kill them.

AMBI forest, leaves

Back in the forest, we?ve come upon several kinds of hallucinogenic mushrooms. But for mushroom hunters like Peres, it?s about these, or even about edible ones. It?s about identifying with nature and observing.

Peres: oh, this is a beauty!

SOQ

Peres: [sound of ID?ing, fade out]

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