Mushroom Hunt

July 15 was the long awaited summer mushroom hunt at Mikiyama Forest Park. I say long-awaited because we signed up for the same event last October, but it was cancelled due to rain. Seventy-three percent of Japan is covered by mountains, and the innumerable mountain forests make it an extremely fertile ground for mushrooms. The fall is the best season for mushrooms and extremely ideal locations offer mushroom hunting tourism then. But the humid, post-rainy season climate in July also offers great conditions and many different species of mushrooms from the fall.

We joined 40 or 50 people, along with three guides, and scoured the forest in search of mushrooms. We quickly realized they were everywhere, and every person brought pack at least a handful to the forest education center.

The choice, edible mushrooms were used in a wild mushroom miso soup. The children took charge of mushroom preparation.

Much of the flavor of the mushrooms was overpowered by the miso, but subtle differences were distinguishable. More important than flavor, it was the many different textures that made each mushroom unique.

The end of the event consisted of the experts explaining the many mushrooms we discovered, and making sure we learned which were deadly and which were delicious.

Deadly!

Our mushroom guide was very nice to us throughout the day, and he gave us some mushrooms to take home! We cooked them alongside carrots, asparagus, and onions, put them in a curry sauce, and ate them with a pork chop. Delicious!

iPhone 4S x Mushroom Hunting

Saturday, October 15, was supposed to be an event that we were looking to for weeks that got cancelled due to a rainy forecast. This is ironic because it ended up not raining at all and because the description of the event said “rain or shine.”

The event was an educational mushroom hunt at the Miki Yama Forest Park, which we have blogged about before. The basic premise was that 40 people would all scour the forest for mushrooms, gather them to one place, and a mushroom expert would teach us about them. Hunting for edible mushrooms is a common practice all across Japan for those who live near the many mountains. Some places even have organized hunts where you pay admission to collect mushrooms like you would for fruit picking, and then afterwards you barbecue them along with other foods.

I have become a little obsessed over mushroom hunting after I started observing them everywhere at the forest park. I have always been a fan of learning survival skills, and foraging for wild foods is a big part of that. I’m also intrigued by the mushroom hunting tradition in Japan. In the States, serious mushroom hunting is limited to very specific regions and is probably largely restricted to die-hard mycology fans. I’ve never met someone in the the States who hunted for wild mushrooms.

But in Japan, where 73% of the country is forested and mountainous, the mushroom plays a much more critical role in the cuisine. The average grocery store has at least six or seven different species of mushrooms. And while mushroom hunting is not a national past-time, it is definitely more common in Japan, and probably most people have eaten a dish at some point that contains wild mushrooms.

All the pictures in the this post were taken with my new iPhone 4S while I was hiking in Miki Yama. A lot of the pictures are out of focus, which I blame more on me than the camera. The get the pictures, I was often squatting in the bushes with spiderwebs in my face and mosquitos buzzing around me, not the best conditions for a steady hand. I hope as I play with the camera more that I can capture some really good mushroom photography in the future. I'm also hoping that they reschedule the mushroom hunt soon!