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Pleasure Hunting / Magical Mushrooms By Ronit Vered Tags: Israel News, mushrooms The night before we went out to hunt mushrooms I had strange dreams. One featured an appearance by the Mushroom Lady from the black-and-white 1912 photograph by Ernest Bloch (the composer, who was also interested in photography), with her mushroom-like moon face, wearing a puritanical black garment and a witch's hat from a story by the Brothers Grimm and waving a giant mushroom as a warning signal. In another, dozens of mushrooms named after Lucifer, the fallen angel, the death cap (amanita phalloides) and the Satan's mushroom (boletus satanas), turned into threatening black skulls. In a third, a Lilliputian army of pine-cone mushrooms (mycena seynii), wearing chain mail, pursued me in order to drive me out of the forest. In fact, the bedtime perusal of a mushroom identification guide that is full of eye-opening warnings and descriptions of nightmarish physical symptoms can cause mental chaos. The blame lies not only in my own foolish romantic soul, but in the thousands of years of awe and horror that contributed to the picturesque names various types of mushrooms have acquired through the years. Prof. Nissan Binyamini, who wrote the first local mushroom identification guide in 1975, gave most of the mushrooms their Hebrew names, in consultation with the Names Committee of the Hebrew Language Academy. Most of the names are free translations of the picturesque Latin names, and the result is refreshingly absurd. There is no happiness like that of discovering the first mushrooms, and no greater desire than the urge to skip ahead and find more and more alien-looking types - as beautiful as red corals, mysterious and succulent in elegant white or off-putting in phosphorescent yellow. Most of them are of course absolutely forbidden for consumption, but nevertheless they are wonderfully exciting. Advertisement Dr. Dalia Levinson, a mushroom researcher and expert on plant genetics and diseases, is the author of "The Carta Guide to Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms in Israel" (in Hebrew). Her love for mushrooms began during her childhood years in Tivon, when the kindergarten children skipped after the teacher with baskets in order to pick mushrooms for soup. Although their Polish neighbor, considered the neighborhood drunk, went out to the forests to pick additional species, the little girl was forbidden to follow him, "because God only knows what he's eating." Then she began to study agriculture, and her hobby became a profession. "Mushrooms are a dizzying world of colors, textures, flavors, smells and fascinating life stories," she says. "They appear suddenly, unexpectedly, and they are a wonderful excuse for wandering around in nature for hours. It takes me back to my childhood and enables me to remain a child myself." The main motive for writing the new guide, which contains hundreds of color pictures, hiking trails and recipes, was the desire to refresh the steadily accumulating knowledge in the field, especially in light of the dozens of cases of poisoning that still occur in Israel every year as a result of eating non-edible mushrooms. The mycophagists, mushroom-eaters, can be a stubborn and careless lot. The biggest secrets of course surround the most expensive treasures. Beneath the rotting forest growth and at the foot of trees lie concealed, even in our country, genuine and rare treasure troves such as morels, chanterelles and porcini. These wonderful mushrooms are familiar to anyone who has visited European marketplaces, and are now imported regularly to Israel. Most cultivated mushrooms, like the champignon, which was domesticated in the 18th century, grow on a bed of decomposing organic substances. It has so far not been possible to cultivate mushrooms that grow in symbiosis with another plant, such as truffles (the truffle oak) or porcini (the chestnut tree). They are gathered by expert, licensed hunters and are often literally worth their weight in gold. We ended our forest adventure with only half our desires fulfilled, singing with happiness, but without enough edible mushrooms to fulfill all our culinary fantasies. The dry November was not kind to mushroom eaters, but early December is the time for beginning the gathering, a job that is of course suitable for a morning following rainy days. "The Carta Guide to Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms in Israel: Identification, Gathering and Recipes," by Dalia Levinson (in Hebrew; Carta publishing). To make an appointment for identification hikes and mushroom gathering: 054-3070783; www.pitriot.com The Guide There is no immediate, simple and safe test by which one can differentiate between poisonous and edible mushrooms. Or as the old proverb goes: "There are elderly mushroom hunters and there are daring mushroom hunters, but there are no elderly and daring mushroom hunters." The best advice on the subject: Go out to gather mushrooms with an expert, and in any case it's a good idea to focus on two or three species that one learns to identify with certainty. Pictures from some guide, and certainly dubious old wives' methods such as the silver spoon test, which rely on your eyes or nose, are no guarantee of a definite identification. Mushrooms identical in appearance and in characteristics that grow in different places are capable of deceiving even the experts. An absolute identification, which is never done in the field, is a complex business requiring a spore print and a microscope. Anyone who is willing to take his life in his hands for a mushroom dish must be insane. Here are several species of edible mushrooms that grow in Israel: Suillus granulatus Season: November to February. The most common edible mushroom in Israel, in spite of a significant decline in recent years, lives in symbiosis with Jerusalem pines and can be found mainly in young pine forests. The most important rule is not to pick what look like pine mushrooms in oak forests. Several species of poisonous mushrooms that grow in oak forests are similar in form to the suillus granulatus. Pleurotus eryngii var. ferulae ?(king oyster mushroom?) Season: December to mid-March. This family includes the pleurotus ostreatus, the oyster mushroom, which has been domesticated and is sold in Israel under the name Jordan mushroom, and the pleurotus cystidiosus ?(abalone mushroom?), both of which are also edible, but rare. The Gilboa mountains in the north are the preferred hunting grounds for them. Morchella conica and morchella esculenta Season: February to May and December to January. Morel mushrooms, which grow in damp earth and burnt earth, are so elusive that all over the world there are associations of hunters who specialize in gathering them. An Israeli research team led by Dr. Segula Masaphy has succeeded in cultivating these mushrooms in laboratory conditions, but they have not as yet been commercially grown. Cantharellus cibarius Season: December to January. The prestigious chanterelle mushroom is found in Israel, mainly in the oak forests of the north, but only rarely, and in small quantities. Gathering the chanterelle requires extreme caution because it is similar in color and shape to the poisonous omphalotus olearius ?(Jack O?Lantern?). Volvariella speciosa Season: December to February. This is one of the most popular mushrooms among mushroom gatherers thanks to its good taste, it grows in orchards, gardens and cultivated fields and is found in abundance in the Sharon region and Emek Hefer. Boudieri truffles and African truffles Season: Late February to May. This species, belonging to the glorious truffle family, grows in the south of the country, in cracks in the earth. The search for them, as anyone who has failed will testify, is difficult and complicated, but they can occasionally be found in season at the Be?er Sheva market. Boletus edulis Season: Late November to mid-January. We are familiar with it as the famous Italian Porcini. In Israel it is rare and grows in oak forests in the north. It should be identified with great caution because it grows in the company of poisonous members of its family. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Back in the Mideast Carter may meet with Hezbollah officials during his visit in Lebanon. Bush's final days Olmert has a thing or two to learn from Bush about an exit strategy.

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