How to Hunt Mushrooms

I must be due another post about picking mushrooms – why it is the height of the season! Recently I have been pondering what skills/abilities are needed to pick mushrooms. This has been caused by two English friends asking me to show them how to do it, which in turn has got me asking that very question how do I do it. I feel hugely unqualified to teach anyone, but in England I suppose I might pass as experienced.

I know for a fact that I would never have started mushrooming if I simply had learnt from a book or books, no matter how good they were. I needed, and I think most people need, a teacher/mentor who took me through those first few steps in which one gains confidence. That is how it began for me – being shown by my Czech friend – and now it is my turn to pass it on. Of course there are so many mushrooms and there are very different views on what is good eating and what is not (just look at the reference books which often are odds with other). This will mean that your mentor will pass on to you their preferences. This will reflect differences in national attitudes to mushrooms. A list of the top 20 edible mushrooms in Russia included several at the top, which are not only considered inedible in this country but even poisonous. I have noticed that the Czechs prize boletuses above all, and they don't seem to pick tree-growing fungi such as two favourites of mine - chicken in the woods and hen in the woods.

One of the first things my friend taught me was that some of the safest mushrooms to pick are those that look least like the sort of mushroom we buy in Tescos – boletuses and chanterelles for example. In fact some of the most deadly mushrooms look like ordinary mushrooms. Why, only a few days ago I picked some smoky mushrooms which are poisonous and which I had mistaken for ordinary mushrooms (I always check mushrooms against the books when I get them home) . So start with those that you can't mistake for anything else, until your confidence grows. The second rule is learn what the poisonous ones look like. Fortunately there aren't that many that will kill you or even make you seriously ill, there are quite a few which will taste revolting but that is another matter. You'll need to get some books to help you learn what things look like and to check what you have picked – one book is not enough (I have six in England and four in the Czech Republic). My books are regular reading, they are great toilet library material. Using these books I have increased my repertoire slowly and tried each new type carefully, eating only a little at first (they may not be poisonous but they might not work for you).

So there are a few thoughts on the subject. If you decide to take up mushrooming, I hope you enjoy it. I am eternally grateful to my Czech friend for introducing me to one of my great pleasures.

The Little Stationmaster

Whilst the hero of Closely Observed Trains wanted to work at the station to avoid having to work, here is one little Czech who clearly really wants to be a stationmaster. None of this modern stuff - wanting to be a computer games designer or popstar, he has the old fashioned aspiration of working on the railways.

I was sat on the train on my way to Ceske Budejovice when I saw him. He was very serious as he stood at Cesky Krumlov station holding his gran's hand. occasionally he would peer along the platform to see what was going on. All around him tourists, backpackers and the locals milled and fussed, he was calm and in control. Why, he had the hat and green circle on stick at the ready and he knew what to do with them. As the whistle went and our train started to pull out he looked straight ahead and raised the circle.

Please, forgive the grainy nature of the photo, it was taken through a not very clean train window.

Closely Observed Trains

Last night I watched the wonderful Czech film Closely Observed Trains - a film adaptation of the Hrabal novel . I have quite a collection of those free DVDs that they give away with newspapers. As these come in simple cardboard covers they are easy to transport over to the Czech Republic in hand luggage. In the case of Closely Observed Trains you might say I was taking coals to Newcastle when I brought that film over, however as a freebie from The Independent this version has the advantage of having English subtitles.

The film is directed by Jiri Menzel and follows the story of Milos Hrma as he struggles to lose his virginity, apparently oblivious to the Nazi occupation of his country and the wider struggle going on around him. Most of the film is set in the sleepy backwater train station where Milos works or rather does very little – the reason why he wanted the job in the first place was in order to avoid working. The film is populated with wonderful comic characters, who are also sympathetically portrayed. In addition to being great comedy, the film is also healthily sexy – one of the best scenes is when Milos' mentor (in more ways than one) at the station seduces a female co-worker with the use of the station's rubber stamps. At the end Milos turns out to be an unexpected war hero, but even this ending is handled with a lightness of touch which is so refreshingly Czech.

The video clip above is the American trailer for the film (in the US it was called Closely Watched Trains). May I suggest you turn the sound off when you watch it, the voiceover is annoying and unnecessary.

Thumbsticks

When I last went mushrooming with one of my Czech friends, she was much taken by my home-made thumbstick.

To any of reader that does not know what a thumbstick is, let me explain. A thumbstick is a walking stick, which has a forked end where one places one's thumb. I first learnt to make thumbsticks when I was a member of the Cotswold Wardens. It was a useful by-product of the Wardens work on laying hedges. Hedge-laying requires the cutting back of trees and shrubs and this generated the raw material for the thumbsticks. The best tree for a thumbstick is hazel, which produces suitably long, strong and straight tree stems which then fork. You simply cut the stick to the length required - the owner should be able to stand comfortably with their thumb in the fork and arm bent ie the fork is about an inch higher than the shoulder.

I do not know if the thumbstick is particularly Cotswold or English but my Czech friend was much taken with it and said she couldn't get one here. I therefore decided to make one for her – there are plenty of hazel trees around the village, so off I went with pruning saw in hand. A length of wood was cut and I set about smoothing it down for her. An hour later and the stick was ready. I met her in a gallery where she works and handed over my handiwork. My stick was hardly a work of art, the stick was not entirely straight, but then as I said to her if she lost it (as I am forever doing when I am mushrooming) I can easily make another. At this point we were joined by a friend of hers. We explained the advantages of the stick to him – with your thumb in the fork your hand can not slip, the fork is useful for holding up electric fence wires and low hanging branches, the stick could beat off an attacker and most importantly for a Czech the fork allows you to turn over and sometimes pick mushrooms without bending down. Her friend listened and came up with another use – the fork could be used to tackle snakes.

Octopus Sausages

When the Czechs have a barbeque they tend to do it over wood rather than charcoal. Why use charcoal when wood is so plentiful? And besides cooking over a campfire has a certain appeal. It takes me back to my time as a girl guide – there is nothing that quite beats hot chocolate cooked in a smoke-blackened pot over a real wood fire, nor sausages with that smoky flavour.

The Czechs, like their neighbours the Germans, are great ones for sausages of all sorts, shapes and sizes. But sausages cooked over burning wood are special and there is a special process to follow in cooking them. First you cut some long thin branches of hazel and sharpen the ends. These are what you will cook the sausages on. Then you take the sausage and cut each end twice to form a cross of cuts. Each visitor places their sausage on the stick and sits by the fire with the sausage in the heat. As the sausage cooks the cut ends curl back to form four arms (eight in all) like an octopus on a stick. This process ensures that the sausages are heated all the way through, although English visitors, much to Czech amusement, still manage to blacken the sausages.

The very act of cooking the sausages forms a bond with your fellow diners. There is an immediate topic of conversation – an experience shared if you like. When my sisters came to stay, they had a great time preparing and cooking their sausages – the process is as much part of the fun as the finished product. Finally to eat add Czech mustard (so lovely my son eats it alone on bread and I have to take several pots over when I fly back to England) or horseradish sauce, and a chunk of Czech bread. An additional treat is some dough wound round a stick and cooked over the fire to create a sort of bread. I remember this from my Girl Guide Handbook or something similar but until I arrived here had never tried it. I must say it's okay but not spectacular, but then I think I am missing the point, the process is the thing, not the eating. Finally wash it down with a load of Czech beer and a few songs sung by the fire under the star-laden heavens and you will have had the time of your life.

A Trip to the Zoo

As I mentioned in my fox post a few weeks ago I recently enjoyed a visit to the Zoo Ohrada at Hluboka Nad Vltavou. The Zoo is one of the oldest in the Czech Republic, it is also the smallest. The Zoo can be found next to a hunting chateau of the Schwarzenberg family and was created to complement the hunting activities of its owner. Thus it has always had a focus on European wild animals, something that continues to this day – two thirds of all the animals there are European.

You approach the zoo down a double avenue of oak trees leading up to the chateau, on your right is a vast lake, with the town and castle of Hluboka on the far shore. The castle, which will get its own blog post some day, was created in the 19^th century architectural style of Tudor Gothic – think Windsor Castle in white and you get the idea and sits on a headland overlooking the town and the river Vltava. I can think of no more beautiful setting for a zoo than this one, however the size of the zoo (limited by the island on which the zoo sits) does have its limitations. The smallness makes it less tiring for families with small children, who certainly love it there, but it limits the size of the animal enclosures too.

I have very mixed feelings about zoos, I am not a ban-all-zoos purist but I do think that animals should be kept in conditions that at least approximate to their natural conditions. It seems to me that some animals seem more able to handle captivity and it is not always the obvious ones either. The other Czech zoo I have visited is the one in Prague and which I think works well, using the hilly landscape of the zoo to full effect, giving space and variety of terrain to the animals. At Hlubloka there are signs that they are trying to improve things, including creating new enclosures , but the Zoo is restricted by its size and flat landscape.

As I said above, the Zoo Ohrada specialises in European wild animals and this was one reason why I wanted to go. The display panels for Czech animals were labelled with a CZ, the background colour of which indicating the rarity/endangeredness of the animal in question – white common, red in gravest danger. There was a wide range of water birds and birds of prey, especially owls. One of the best sections was one entitled Czech Woodland, this walk-through enclosure was a miniature wood with all those birds I normally hear but never see. Even then I didn't see all of them, but I did see quite a few.

The place was heaving with children who were clearly loving it. My party was made up of a group of water colourists, who went off painting the animals, so I resorted to taking photographs, which is as far as my visual art talents go. Here are a few to give you the feel of the place.

August 21st 1968 - Russian Invasion

This year the Czechs remembered that day forty years ago when the tanks of the USSR and their Warsaw Pact allies rolled into Prague to reverse the liberalisation of the Prague Spring. Of course the timing of the anniversary has led to comparisons with the recent invasion of Georgia by Russia. The Prague Post has had a number of interesting pieces on the subject. Another comparison also comes to my mind - that with the events of the Velvet Revolution, when the Russian tanks did not roll in, but this does not seem to be much remembered in the current climate.

As a Brit I have pondered for some time what, if anything, I can say of value on the subject. I was only 10 at the time of the invasion and have a hazy memory of the BBC news coverage at the time - of people pleading with stony-faced Russian troops and my parents' reaction of sorrow. But more importantly I am aware (as I am always aware) of the very different pasts of the country of my birth and of my adopted home.

As a Brit I am supportive of any nation' s aspiration to democracy and the shaking off of tyranny. A child in the 60s we played Nazis and Brits in the playground and I remember still being taught how to draw spitfires by the big boy in the hospital bed across from mine, when I was having my appendix out. Only 2o years after the end of the war I watched with pride as the veterans marched down our street and then I stood with head bowed in the two-minute silence at the war memorial in the town square. "They died that the world could be free", I was told. Only in 1968 the people of Czechoslovakia were not free, and we could do nothing about it.

The invasion of Georgia coming at the time of the 40th anniversary has led to the Czechs expressing their fear that their current freedom will be shortlived. This fear expresses itself in support for the siting of US radar stations in the Czech Republic and it expresses itself in opposition to them. For many Russia remains the enemy, the threat of its aggression hangs over the former members of the "evil" empire.

It will perhaps come as a surprise to my Czech readers that I understand something of the Russians' position. It seems to me that they are suffering from a trauma arising from the rapid loss of empire. The Russian Empire goes back centuries to the great Russian rulers of Peter and Catherine the Great - it was the second largest empire in modern times. And who better to understand what the Russians are going through with its loss than a scion of the largest empire. In my primary school the map on the wall still had much of the world coloured pink- the Empire (and later the Commonwealth) on which the sun never set; besotted by history I devoured the tales of Empire - of David Livingstone, Clive of India, General Wolfe, and Captain Cook. And so I learnt not just about Britain defending freedom but also taking it, and as a child I was proud of both and saw no contradiction in my position.

No, I am sorry, my Czech friends, I am a child of Empire. I cannot know what it is to have been subjected by an imperial power. But I do know what happens to a people who have lost a great empire, one that had defined their identity for centuries. We are at a loss, we hurt. We tell ourselves stories - that the Empire was the price we paid for the defeat of Hitler or that the collapse of the empire was amicable - and we are angry and hurt by those former subject states that challenge the stories. Of course none of this excuses imperialism nor the actions of post-imperialist powers, it merely goes some way to explaining it.