But what I want the most is for them to finish clearing my forest.

December 4, 2022 7:29 AM

In Forests Full of Mines, Ukrainians Find Mushrooms and Resilience [The New York Times]

“The forests in areas that were occupied remain heavily mined. Mines and unexploded ordnance cover thousands of square miles of Ukrainian land, according to the interior minister, Denys Monastyrsky. The Ukrainian government pleaded with people not to pick mushrooms, and the government agency for forest resources imposed formal restrictions on walking in forests in nine Ukrainian provinces, including the region around Kyiv where Mr. Poyedynok goes. But specialists say it will take at least a decade to demine the forests — and many Ukrainians were not ready to wait that long before returning to their favorite hobby. Reports of mushroom hunters stepping on mines came regularly from all of the nine provinces where walking in the forest was banned.”

These misty and damp parts of the country have long beckoned to mushroom hunters with the promise of plenty, but now peril, too, lies beneath the earth’s surface.
posted by Fizz (8 comments total)

The significance of fungi for Ukrainians goes beyond the culinary, even historically: see the throughline in local takes - from H. Narbut to O. Sudomora up to N. Kravtsov - on the War of the Mushrooms folktale (I have a short piece about this in the latest issue of Fungi Mag). And: the local fungi are as fearless as their foragers, they've actually been studied for their singular, hardy response to the radiation received in 1986 at Chornobyl....
posted by progosk at 9:22 AM on December 4, 2022 [7 favorites]

A good few years ago I went mushroom picking in NE Poland. It can get pretty busy in the woods especially near to access roads during fine weekends in the picking season. I was getting pretty smug about being able to pick the right sort until I brought one to the communal basket and was told to a) throw it far away and b) go down to the lake niezwłocznie to wash my hands.
Apart from that it was a successful haul of free food and my companions were happy out. In the car going back they talked about the respected local expert on edible fungi, who had passed away earlier in the year at the age of 87. That's a grand old age for Poland and I asked what had been the cause of death. Mushrooms, they chorused: even the most knowledgeable can make an error. Still and all, that sure beats having your leg shredded and bleeding out in the woods.

Chapeaux to Canadian wanderer Stephen Sumner. He lost his leg in a bicycle-car accident, screamed through several years of phantom pain, then cured himself in the parking lot of the store where he bought a mirror. With his eyes shining with fervour rather welling up with tears he went off to Cambodia, designed a light-weight unbreakable therapeutic mirror, loaded his bike with samples and went off into the countryside. Whenever he saw someone missing a leg, he'd dumb-show his way through the way to put the pain behind. "I can’t believe no one else is doing this. It’s super-effective. I’d have thought there would be thousands of people riding around with mirrors, but there are not… What is wrong with people?”
posted by BobTheScientist at 9:31 AM on December 4, 2022 [14 favorites]

Extra danger, I doubt there's capacity in the Ukrainian donor network right now for many liver transplants - which are often the only chance for survival when you stumble on a death cap mushroom, easily confused with some very tasty species. In Poland we have at least a couple cases per year where kids especially need transplants or end up passing away due to foraged mushroom stew, with a big tragedy last year when a whole freshly evacuated Afghan family made mushroom soup in a resettlement centre and lost two preschoolers. Personally I have exactly 5 kinds of mushrooms I know well enough to pick and stay away from everything else.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 1:29 PM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

I feel we should all have that French thing, where you can go to the pharmacy to get your mushrooms checked. But it is obviously too much to ask of the Ukrainian government right now.

Perhaps it is more relevant to discuss how forests and foraging are a huge part of Central and Eastern European culture. I forage a bit, but it's not really a part of my economy. But in one of the woods I regularly visit, it is very clear that a lot of immigrants and refugees from Central and Eastern Europe are foraging more deliberately, almost all year round. For mushrooms, and also for herbs and roots. I'm impressed. I kind of want to ask them to teach me their skills, but I also know it is a source of income for them that I don't need.

And at the end of the day, this is about Russian terror in Ukraine. Russians are as much into foraging as Ukrainians, they know what they are doing when they mine the forests.
posted by mumimor at 2:19 PM on December 4, 2022 [8 favorites]

Ukraine is probably going to have to implement a Belgian style Iron Harvest system and run it for decades after this war.
posted by srboisvert at 2:41 PM on December 4, 2022 [3 favorites]

My Ukrainian- American family has been passing around this article like mad, we gather mushrooms wherever we are in the diaspora. It’s just something so culturally important, a walk in the woods for sustenance, and to add flavor to food in the depth of winter. A dried mushroom can add joy to food months from now and my god is that important in the late winter/early spring hungry months- dried mushrooms simmered in water can almost make you forget that the meal has no sustenance. The nose fools you. Mushrooms feature heavily in our winter foods, and frankly they are delicious. I understand the pull to need to continue these traditions that have sustained us in past lean times.

I have eternally confused American friends on hikes when just I casually pick mushrooms or start talking about good or bad ones, or comment on ones growing in weird places, but that’s just how it goes, by chatting about the mushrooms you pass along information about what is good, and what isn’t. I usually stick to the ones I know about, but my family has a bookshelf of mushroom reference books, and autumn would be for grand debates about mushrooms, confirming identification and then feasting or drying upon them.

This past year was fairly dry in the northeast US, and we barely got enough mushrooms for that days meal, much less preserving them. I’ll be buying my Christmas правдиві гриби (porcini: boletus edulis, or in Ukrainian “real mushroom” ) this year. Here’s to calm mossy woods and abundant mushrooms in (hopefully near term) times of peace.
posted by larthegreat at 2:44 PM on December 4, 2022 [12 favorites]

If you put me on a treadmill, I'll die of boredom. I gritted my teeth to run miles in my younger days because it was good for me. But now, if I want to make myself walk for an entire day without a care I just go foraging. Mushrooms in the fall are my favorite.

This last September I walked to my usual spots without finding much. It was disappointing, but I trudged on. It was foggy, but eventually I could see a tree absolutely glowing orange in the mist. It was a very dead oak absolutely covered in hundreds of pounds of Chicken of the Woods. I tried taking pictures, but nothing was able to capture the beauty of the perfect, freshly formed, bug-free brackets. I didn't want to ruin the view for any other hikers, so I took a few pounds from the back and filled my basket.

I eventually found oysters and maitake as well (my favorite), so I had a full haul of the best stuff. After returning home from camp I made a very nice mushroom risotto. I dried, pickled and froze the rest.

It's such a wholesome hobby. You're not exploiting anyone's labor. Picking mushrooms does not harm the mycelium underneath, and can help spread spores if you use something with a mesh or weave.

So I can understand the appeal, even if there is man-made danger in the woods. I can't imagine having to wait 10 years for something that brings so much joy and the price otherwise is a chance to be hurt or killed. So quick to ruin something and then almost a decade to fix it. It's very unfair.
posted by Alison at 5:30 PM on December 4, 2022 [7 favorites]

I love human interest story, the mushrooms and the description of the complex and deep damage done by the war but call bullshit on"specialists say it will take at least a decade to demine the forests..." . The government said in September that "demining forests in Kyiv region will take about a year." The estimate that it would take "10 years was for the whole country, not just the forests, and made back in June. Also and maybe more fundamentally, reconstruction and rebuilding to eliminate evidence of damage has been a conscious strategy for the government and I think it'd be helpful if the article also mentioned that actually a lot of demining is already happening.
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 11:50 PM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]