Foraging for Abundance
The forager stands to rediscover eden
In my one year of living in San Francisco, I haven't seen it rain anything like this. Among talk of the ages-old drought in California, it's strange to see weeks straight of showers between drizzles and flood-level storms. And, it's not just us humans who are feeling it; mushrooms are taking notice.
A few years ago, I became interested becoming a mushroom forager. I'd seen pictures of basketfuls from ripe fields of chanterelles, or 'catch and cook' videos where a porcini discovery turns into bowls of pristine mushroom tagliatelle. There's a great delight to be found in walking out into the world and having it hold you in all the abundance of what has decided to grow. Interest in foraging taps into some collective unconscious desire to rediscover eden, of a garden that provides but needs no cultivation, of a natural intention alongside a human one.
The main challenge in accessing this natural abundance is seeing it. On my first trip, under the guidance of a more knowledgeable forager, we found a bounty that quickly filled up the modest canvas bag we had brought along. Even in new territory, she deftly brought us to a gregarious circle of young chanterelles. My contribution was the spotting of a distant chicken of the woods mushroom, orange as an egg yolk, burgeoning from a downed tree.
When I thought to try out the same skillsets, I quickly learned that seeing abundance takes time. I could identify a few choice edibles (forager's term for "the good stuff"), but there were countless other species that I was more likely to encounter. Without an eye shaped by time in the field, I had no clear view of what to do with any of them. Wild enoki mushrooms grow all over, but are separated from the poisonous deadly galerina by just a few features like their more velvety stems. The crown-tipped coral grows on dead wood, whereas its poisonous lookalike will grow on the forest floor. Or was it the other way around. The moisture of soaked earth after rainfall stimulates mushroom growth, but how long to wait? How old is this forest and what will it let grow?
Foraging is not something best primarily learned online. The world of taxonomy does not simplify to the structure of a database; ecology does not bend to a linear read. Sometimes it is even insufficient to use the eyes alone. You have to see in context, with the plurality of other factors in play. Listen for running water and remember how the winter oyster mushroom may be near. Touch the enoki to feel its velvety texture. Taste the crown-tipped coral for a hint of black pepper.
Although this initial forage fervor was brief, I still see in some of the ways of the mushroom, and I learn more where I can. The recent rains gave me a reason to return.
From the start of the trip, picking up where I left off, I found my knowledge dulled by time. The humbling experience of no longer seeing clearly tugged at my enthusiasm. Frequent and well meaning mushroom spottings from my foraging companions meant I had to give a lot of partial answers. It's a bolete, but the brown underside and thin stem mean it's not a porcini. Yes it's yellow like a chanterelle, but it has true gills that don't touch the stem and the inside isn't white. Yes, it gives off portobello vibes, but please do not eat it.
The abundance we found was not one I could access. At the end of the day, we had found a whole lot of mushrooms, but no culinary options I recognized. In these moments I remind myself that disappointment is a brief state in the arc of seeing abundance. The forests will keep growing. The rains will come again.
I hold foraging in the woods in comparison to its urban counterpart: the supermarket. The bell peppers in your local store are held in an infinite red-ripe stasis. Never out of stock, never impacted by the seasons, never cold, never warm, never less (or more) beautiful. Always from some far off place. It is only you that changes: what you make from them in the kitchen, how much you hunger, with whom you share. You can improvise for them, they cannot improvise for you. The static is, by some notion, dead.
Aside from the disappointment of not finding what I thought I wanted, I found much else. I collected mental images of new mushrooms to discover. Next time I will more fully see them. I saw droves of banana slugs basking in the leftover moisture. They are new friends. I ate an incredible olive-filled wheat country loaf. The birds enjoyed along with me. I found small transitions between microbiomes, open fields leading to new fir trees, leading to older growth forests. Eroding hills shed gravel into a riverbed, and probably mycelium along with it.
The forager's orientation stands against the predictability of a life designed top down, they cultivate their knowledge, but love to be surprised. Plants in captivity cannot surprise you. The red of bell peppers will not change color. The supermarket will sustain, but it will not delight. The plants will not come out to greet you, nor will they shrink away. Only in the multifarious life of others outside our own intentions do we find an antidote. In order to discover, there must be periods of obscurity and blank space. The scarcity of one trip will enable the bounty of some next.
I will go out again next week. Before then, I will try to see more clearly. I will prime myself to notice the dark hairs atop light browned caps that mark clumps of tasty honey mushrooms. I will plug away at a few search terms and add a few more tricks to my toolkit. I will meditate a bit on not finding. I will rest my eyes and then go into the world to look again.