Mushroom hunting is in our blood
Text and images: Viktorija Bernataviciute
I think only a few Lithuanians from my generation could say that they have never been mushroom picking - it is a big part of our culture and traditions. There is even a poem for kids written by a famous Lithuanian poet, which tells a story about mushrooms, who spurred by the wife of their king ( a cep, of course), are preparing to go to war against other woodland creatures, only at the end to be plucked by eager mushroom pickers. Most of us could recite parts of this poem by heart!
A lot of Lithuanians have very fond memories of spending sunny autumn days in the forests, hunting for mushrooms with their parents or grandparents. And I wanted to share some of those memories.
I always used to go mushroom picking with my grandparents. The day would start very early, I would need to be up at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning - you need to get there early, before all the other mushroom hunters! Those mornings in the woods were very magical - quiet and still, dew drops still covering everything around you. And the woodland smells around you were just dizzying!
We would walk around the woods, never straying too far from each other, occasionally giving a loud shout of ‘AAUUUUU’ if someone was out of sight. We would all carry wicker baskets, hand made by my grandad, to put our mushrooms in. Later on in the morning my grandmother would unpack a picnic and we would all sit on a blanket on the soft mossy woodland floor, eating sandwiches and drinking tea.
By the late afternoon the car would be full of baskets of mushrooms and we would go back to my grandparents’ summer house. And then the hard work would start! We would clean all the mushrooms, then cook, dry, freeze and pickle them, working outside in the garden until late evening. Oh, and the success of your mushroom hunt would be measured by how many cep mushrooms you found that day!
Up to this day I still enjoy mushroom hunting every autumn, and can’t resist taking a lot of pictures of these beautiful and tasty funghi.
