photo (c) Fred Stevens from a website on mushrooms, see link below. |
This is continued from Rune's presentation part I, here. This is a little bit of editing and a little bit of addition to the last post. I added a photo (above) from this website:
.
A picture
of Rune's grandmother holding small tan mushrooms came up next. She had a
pained looking half-smile.
"The second mushroom my grandmother taught me
to collect and eat was a small tan mushroom she variously called a fairy ring
mushroom and a tan toadstool. It’s Latin name is Marasmius oreades.”
Another
shot showed the mushrooms growing in a circle. “They grown in a circle,”
Rune said, “As they use up the food in the center. Some circles get hundreds of feet across.” A third shot showed their peculiar
hat-like shape. “Toadstools,” Rune said, "are often considered poisonous, that
is, anything called a toadstool is usually thought of as poisonous.
Everyone in my neighborhood when I was a child called these toadstools and were
horrified that we collected and ate them. But they were good. Extremely
good. And I am still alive.”
Rune
passed a handout to the boy at the corner seat. “Here are some recipes for
fairy-ring mushroom soup, fairy-ring rice pilaf and others, along with some
links to other recipes. I got
these off the internet. My
grandmother, my mother and I always used these mushrooms like any other—cut the
stems off first—in stir fries, on pizza, in lasagna, or fried in butter and
served as a side dish.” (to be continued)
NOTE: Although this is a novel and the STORY is from the imagination, the plot and characters, parts of it are true, and this but about my grandmother and the mushrooms is true and from my real childhood. These are, in fact, the mushrooms we ate.
I do not, however, have any pictures of my grandmother with mushrooms (I don't think) In fact, I have very few pictures of her, as she did not like to have her picture taken. Here is one.
I am the kind of dy-eee-ah looking child on the left of the photo. My grandmother (the one who gathered mushrooms, though my other grandmother may also have gathered mushrooms) is the one in the center, between my mother and father.
I do not, however, have any pictures of my grandmother with mushrooms (I don't think) In fact, I have very few pictures of her, as she did not like to have her picture taken. Here is one.
I am the kind of dy-eee-ah looking child on the left of the photo. My grandmother (the one who gathered mushrooms, though my other grandmother may also have gathered mushrooms) is the one in the center, between my mother and father.
1 comment:
awww, you're so cute, and what fond memories of mushroom collecting with your grandmother.
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