Mushrooms

It had not taken us long to become acquainted with the inhabitants of the little hamlet. They were friendly and generous with their time and advice. We gradually adjusted to living without all the amenities taken for granted back in the states, although I often became frustrated having to use the well as a cooler since we had no refrigeration.

One of the most enjoyable activities of ‘living off the land’ that we experienced while living in Marangis was gathering mushrooms. It came as a complete surprise as we had never contemplated such an activity, and once having done so, we took great delight in gathering them as often as possible. Taking our visitors on a mushroom hunt was always the highlight of their visit with us.

When the women living in the hamlet invited me to join them that first morning, I didn’t know what to expect. It was early morning, well before sunrise. After a few minutes walk, we reached the pasture where the mushrooms grew, but as I gazed across the meadow, I didn’t see any mushrooms.

The women spread out across the area and my neighbor explained that they would soon be popping up from the ground like pop corn. From the first moment we spotted a button mushroom, it was astonishing to see how fast they began popping up all around us. We filled our baskets well before sunrise when the mushrooms stopped growing.

I was hooked on mushroom hunting from that first day and went often with or without the other ladies. I often took my three year old son and the two of us had great fun finding the little mushrooms. On the way back to the house, I passed the home of an elderly man who was the local mushroom expert. I always stopped and had him check my basket. On occasion he would toss one or two away saying they were poison. Even though he showed me how to tell the good from the bad, I was never confident enough to by pass his place without his approval.

Our neighbor often told us about the large mushrooms to be had in the woods at Fontainebleau. They described them as being the size of dinner plates and we thought it an exaggeration, but hoped to see for ourselves one day.

A New York painter and his wife were spending a year in Paris and often came to the country to visit us. When we told them about our mushroom hunting in Marangis, and our neighbor’s declaration that huge ones were available in Fontainebleau, we decided to make a pilgrimage to look for them. We hired the adult son of the family who sold us milk to take us by horse and wagon to the woods where the mushrooms grew. The son was retarded but was reliable and trustworthy and his family often hired him out with their team and wagon if they were not being used in the fields.
We took our neighbors with us and enough picnic foods to last the day and off we went. It was some miles to Fontainebleau but the distance was part of the adventure. When we reached the woods, we discovered the dinner size mushrooms for our selves. If I had not seen and picked them myself, I would never have believed it.

We made several more trips to the woods at Fontainebleau during the time we lived in Marangis. It was always a pleasure to share the enthusiasm of the ‘hunt’ with others.