#Mushroom wars mushroom hunter driver
A taxi driver plucked one from our basket and asked us what were those things. An inquisitive woman craned her neck from a distance and waved off the offer of one fine mushroom as a gift.
One hairnetted kitchen worker on a smoke break related that his grandfather fell gravely ill from eating mushrooms. Whereas in Switzerland, the sight of such a stash might set off a bidding war, or in Russia a fistfight, onlookers in one nearby village were roundly skeptical about our mushrooms. But perhaps more than the properties of the mushroom itself, the sensation of finding such a forager’s trophy in such abundance was euphoric. Eating them raw, fresh from the ground, we thought we identified the nutty taste that Jilber detailed in his entry on this specimen in his book Türkiye’nin Mantarları ( The Mushrooms of Turkey), published, sadly, only in Turkish. A bold orange cap concealing delicate gills and a trunk that looked to be bathed in saffron: Unlike the fragile chanterelles we’d found down the path or the clunky spongy porcini in our baskets, the Caesar struck a, well, imperial pose. Even for those unappreciative of most fungal nuances, these Caesars – found in Istanbul’s Belgrade Forest, an oasis of green on the city’s northern edge crisscrossed by Ottoman-era dams and aqueducts – were something to behold. After Mehmet had filmed each mushroom, the giddy group of men flipped open their knives and began plucking them from the ground, snuggling them into their baskets.
“ Magnifique,” said Jean Renee, one of our companions, pointing out more “eggs” with his umbrella.Īnd then, Jilber (pronounced “Jeel-bear”), unable to contain himself, raised his arms and did a little Anatolian shimmy, hopping in green rubber boots among the mushrooms. “ Muhteşem,” said Mehmet, the photographer of this expedition, in a slow drawl. “Last year, if I found just one Caesar, I’d do a belly dance!” said Jilber. Beside were smaller bulbous ones of the same family that evoked clown noses, while among the brush were caps just beginning to emerge from their white “shell.” Our expedition of four, led by Jilber Barutçiyan, Turkey’s leading wild mushroom expert, froze and took in the marvel of this forager’s treasure trove. Gathered together in the damp, brown leaves were a couple of long-stemmed, large-capped mushrooms as big as dinner plates, their tops beginning to flatten. Called ovoli to admirers in Italy, Amanita caesarea to the bookish, and yumurta, or egg, in Turkish, these were Caesar’s mushrooms, named for their popularity with the Roman emperors. “This would be front-page news in France!” Jilber raved, darting off between tall chestnut trees and oaks, obscured by a hazy steam that seemed to hang in the forest like a gauzy Halloween decoration. He looked over each shoulder and all around him where it seemed he was surrounded by golf balls, shanked off and forgotten in the rough. Editor’s note: We’re celebrating Mushroom Week at Culinary Backstreets, and today’s installment takes us to Istanbul’s Belgrade Forest, where Turkey’s leading wild mushroom expert has found some remarkable fungus specimens.