Fruiting Bodies
Mushrooms aren’t the majority of their own self. They’re fruiting bodies, and they grow out of vast networks of mycelium like little eldritch messengers of fecundity and growth. The spore drop, the deliquescence, the decay, and then you’re waiting until next year to see if they come back and you can get to them in time to eat them.
Look at this picture.
Many good friends!
All of these picture-perfect specimens are mushrooms I found last autumn and winter over various forages with friends. When I look at this little collage I threw together, I feel like I’m arriving at a block party where I can see neighbors and friends, and people I’ve seen around but whose names I don’t know, and occasionally complete strangers.
In this crowd, which feels friendly, I see two of my very favorite gourmet mushrooms, one that is poisonous unless you know how to process it right and discover it’s one of the most delicious mushrooms you’ve ever had, another that’s supposed to be even better but I won’t have the courage to sample for at least another year, a few who will result in a really, really bad weekend if you work them into your meal plan, and one that I can’t make up my mind about. It’s edible, and some people say they’re quite good if you use them to thicken stew or savory hand pies.
It’s also parasitic, and when I see it teeming on the trunk of a tree I can’t help but feel a pang for its doom. (There’s also the practical question of how to harvest it without spreading its spores, which I haven’t quite figured out yet.)
Very young honey mushrooms growing out of an unfortunate tree.
I’m not sure what this journal’s fruiting bodies will look like. I suspect they’ll be all over the map, because I’m an eclectic, easily distracted person and that’s an inevitability when I’m given free rein. Some entries might be written for the Dirtgoblin Community Center, hidden away in some way like a matsutake button hiding under a cozy duvet of pine needles. Most, I think, will be public, probably quite short, and only loosely connected to one another by my own curiosity and distraction.
Starting next year, I will do my very best to write something here every day. I’ve had good luck sticking to one New Year’s resolution this year (watch a movie every day) and last year (only share articles I’ve read start to finish), and I think this year I can allow myself the ambition of a whopping two resolutions: posting something here daily, and finally, finally getting my driver’s license.
I need to drive to reach the really good mushroom spots around here.
