Fungi in Bulgaria....Гъбите от Гората - Лоша или Добра

[Hristo]

Гъбите от Гората - Лоша или Добра
Mushrooms from the Forest - Bad or Good

Very kindly my neighbor ( Osman ) took me into the woods today to collect forest mushrooms.
No idea of their names only if they are bad ( Лоша - losha ) or good ( Добра  - dobra ) A nice three hour walk from sunrise to 10.00 am in which we found around 2 to 3 kilos of mushrooms.
As the last picture shows it was all worthwhile!!

[Hristo]

More pics

[Hristo]

Last pics.....
P.s.. mnogo dobra = very good 

[mark smyth]

This reminds me of when I went to the SRGC late bulb day for the first time. I stayed with Ian and Carol Bainbridge. To go with the evening meal of steak we went out looking for various fungi to go with it - chanterelles and baybols. I dont know the correct spelling

[Ragged Robin]

What a fantastic opportunity to be shown the good and the bad fungi - really interesting, Hristo, a wonderful forest adventure with an even better ending 

[David Nicholson]

I just hate the taste of mushrooms but I could murder a steak right now.

[mark smyth]

and all in a beech, Fagus, forest

[Hristo]

Hi RR,
Yes I wanted to be able to ID the good uns, field mushrooms no problems, but woodland mushrooms....you just can't beat local knowledge!
Indeed Mark mainly beech with occasional stands of oak and pine. The area is popular with the local men who like to go hunting bears!

[Maggi Young]

I stand to be corrected by the likes of Hans J's wife, Barbara, who is a great expert on edible funghi, but we do find a lot of the edible types here under Beech. I would think that beech woods are one of the richest sources....

[Hristo]

Maggi, and better in the spring when the weather is warm and damp as opposed to now when it is cool and damp!

[Lesley Cox]

Bring on the garlic and lemon juice.

[cohan]

Maggi, and better in the spring when the weather is warm and damp as opposed to now when it is cool and damp!

i'd say almost indispensible to have the first hand knowledge!
the yellow tomatoes look great..
here, most mushrooms/fungi come out in late summer/fall, even though its not necessarily a damp time; i guess they develop over the short summer and fruit late in the season...

[Stephenb]

Interesting to see a selection of your fungi, several of which are familiar here too. Pictures 5 and 9 are indeed “Dobra”, probably what the Italians call Porcini (Boletus edulis) or a closely related species. However, it wouldn’t be advisable to eat no. 5 as it looks like it’s infected by a parasitic fungus (white on the cap), as we all too often find them here. Definitely my favourite fungi, but good porcini years are unfortunately  rather irregular (in good years, I dry them so that I have a good supply for several years). I was reading recently that Italian Porcini has become so popular in Italy and abroad that what was formerly locally collected in the alps is now largely imported from China and Eastern Europe, so that it’s no longer “Italian” although marketed as such. One of the most important source countries is Bulgaria, particularly for fresh porcini…

The mushroom I use most of is what we call Traktkantarell here (Craterellus or Cantharellus tubaeformis). Not sure if it has a common English name, but it has a wide distribution including both the UK and North America? It’s a late autumn mushroom and it’s easy to collect large quantities which are almost always of good quality. This picture is from last year (I plan to collect this weekend as long as it doesn’t snow):

[Hristo]

Hi Stephen,
Curiosly Osman suggested No.5 should be dried and used in soup, no idea if this would help with regards to the parasite!
The collectors earn at best 5 levs, around £2.50 per kilo, it took the two of us three hours to collect 2.5 kilos!
I guess it is not  the Bulgarians who actually collect these mushrooms making the big bucks!

[Olga Bondareva]

Yes #5 and #9 are Boletus edulis. Hristo you can roast them with onions and cream or make a soup from fresh or dried. Very tasty mushroom!