My friend curryman took me out for gathering mushroom as my mushrooming mentor. He was the man who taught me fly fishing and MTB first also.
I left my home at 5AM, and picked him up 5:30. We headed for FUJI SUBARU line, and started mushrooming around 7 o'clock.
He showed me our first catch. It is called 'SHOGENJI' in Japanese. It likely tastes good and should be used for all-purpose cooking.
Then I found something blacks. I asked him what are they? His answer was 'It may be KUROKAWA as famous as one of best mushrooms! '.
It was identified as 'KUROKAWA' later. Wow, what a lucky guy am I!! It should be called just 'Beginner's Luck'.
It was baked wrapped tin aluminium foil and eaten with sweet soy sauce later. I thought its bitter taste should be preferred by adult, who likes his drink like me.
The moss covered forest reminded me Olympic National Park, US. It was also fun just to walk in forest with cool air.
This flower seemed to be called 'FUJIAZAMI', and be unique native around there Mt. FUJI.
We were back to car to move for second hole. It got beautiful sunny day today.
First major findings at second hole were 'NARATAKE'. He said it should be good in a soup. So I cooked it in MISO soup later.
Now I knew the meaning that 'mushrooming was similar to fishing' commented by curryman.
Type of mushrooms which we could see depended by season, place, elevation, temperature... just like mayfly's hatch. And the joy of finding mushrooms was close to fishing especially.
This is the one called 'HANAIGUCHI'. It had wet surface and beautiful color.
Today's our all harvests. They are just blessing of nature.
SHOGENJI was cooked as pilaf with my dutch oven, and tasted good!
Boiled HANAIGUCHI with WASABI soy sauce was my best bet today. Its taste and feeling of bite might be close to 'NAMEKO'.
I believe I already became mushroom enthusiast.