FORAGED FROM THE HEADLINES

Maybe you saw some headlines, such as the one in the Evening Standard:

 

And below it a story about mushroom foragers who’d been collecting fungi in large  quantities from Epping Forest, then selling them to fancy London restaurants and markets.

The legality, or otherwise, of this was pretty straightforward.  Foraging is generally legal on public land in the UK, but only if it’s for personal consumption and if you don’t collect more than 1.7kg. 

 

But the professional foragers of Epping Forest were taking much more than that, and they’ve now been stopped.  Some of them have been given fines, and foraging has been completely banned in the forest.  There are wardens to enforce it apparently.

 

Of course John Cage made a significant income from selling foraged mushrooms to fancy New York restaurants, but there was only one of him.

As for that headline, you could argue about whether mushrooms have anything to do with the ‘green lungs’ of London or anywhere else.  Obviously mushrooms are not green because they don’t contain chlorophyll and in most circumstances they ‘breathe’ much the way that  animals and humans do - oxygen in and carbon dioxide out.  You might also note that significant amounts of Epping Forest are not in London.

 

         When I’m out walking I’m always fascinated by mushrooms growing wild and often I take a picture or two and when I get home I try to identify the specimen. I find this incredibly difficult, and I would never dream of eating something I’d foraged.  There’s a reason for this.

 

I used to share a flat with a man who was a hospital administrator in London.  One day, he told me, a family of four pitched up in A & E at the hospital complaining of stomach pains.  They’d been out foraging wild mushrooms, eaten them, and then come down with terrible stomach pains.  The hospital was eventually able to sort them out – a process that involved giving all four of them liver transplants.  A cautionary tale.  

 

According to that Evening Standard article there are over 1,500 varieties of mushroom in Epping Forest. I hope those foraging lads knew what they’re doing.