The Mushroom Hunter Becomes the Hunted

Yesterday I spent the morning in Bialoleka Dworska hunting kurki, the slightly peppery mniam-mniam Chanterelles. Going mushroom picking is a popular activity in Poland which we don't do much of in the UK, so it was a first for me.

Every day of additional sun is a blessing to be enjoyed and the beauty of the forest was magnified ten-fold by the sun streaming through the leaves and the silence all around us.
 

 Keeping one eye out for a wild boar and another for the mushrooms themselves, I appear not to have an eye left for checking for cobwebs and giant spiders like the one above and regular find myself thrashing around at my own face like a madman. Glad pudelek.pl don't have a man out shadowing me.

Walking through the forest I spot an unnatural line in the ground. Not a stream, but a trench dug by the Germany army in 1944. Suddenly the forest has a different tone and I can't help wondering if any of the men whose graves I saw at the cemetry on Zwirki i Wigury for the soldiers of the 1st Belarusian Front fought and died here.

Here and there shell craters and dissected tree stumps show that these positions were bombarded at some point. Other more unnatural gashes show richocet furrows where artillery rounds bounced or deflected off the ground.

One day all of these physical scars will eventually disappear, but for now - like the war in Polish people's memories - they are a visable, tangible remainder and reminder of the great horror that once overcame this beautiful land.

On to cheerier subjects - the end result (not all mine, I'll admit, there's a skill to it which even with laser eye surgery I didn't master) almost as many kurki as I have mosquito bites, and I've got plenty of both... may as well let the little buggers have a final hurrah on my juicy, naive bloodstream.

Tonight... how to cook the arched, peppery mushrooms in a simple dish. Mushroom picking - one tradition I intend to bring with me to the UK. Life is fortunately good.