Today I went to our municipal nature park — it’s about two kilometers from my home — to do a little modest hike of about three hours. It’s a large park, hundreds of hectares, but only about ten hectares is accessible in a kind easy and safe way.
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There’s a lot of native rainforest in the mountains of the Serra Gaucha (South of Brazil), but the part I usually explore in the park is a mix of pine trees, eucalyptus trees, bushy pastures, and native Atlantic Forest (which is a type of rainforest in Brazil). It gives a quite interesting mix of many types of mushrooms, and you can find quite an abundance of mushrooms in all seasons: winter, spring, summer, and autumn.
Today was an extraordinary day. We’re approaching spring (we live in the southern hemisphere and it’s still winter) and yesterday it was 31 degrees Celsius (I know that sounds strange for winter, but it also can get to -3 degrees Celcius here), but today it was 14 degrees when I woke up and didn’t get higher than 18. Perfect for hiking.
But when I entered the park (and you will see the pictures here further below) it was extremely foggy, sometimes only twenty meters vision, a bit scary in the forests, but magical. Normally, I focus on mushrooms, but not always. In fact, I didn’t really today, just wanted to stretch the legs and breathe the forest.
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Nonetheless, I stumbled upon several kinds of mushrooms (you just can’t really avoid still looking for them), three of which are edible, so I picked them to eat tonight. The lead image of this post is the result.
It was a really good dinner; rice, beans, and three types of mushrooms (Shitake, Chinese ears i.e. Wood ears [Auricularia], and a species of Lentinus). I first cooked them three minutes in water because they were a bit dryish (we had a very dry week here). Rinsed them well afterwards, and then fried them for about five minutes in oil with salt, black pepper, and nutmeg.
I was really surprised how the Shitake mushroom became big and soft and very tasty. I much enjoyed the Chinese ears (I got addicted to them), and the Lentinus was crunchy, but in a good way. You know, what’s better in life than to go walking, breathing the forest, seeing it so nice as today, foraging mushrooms, and at the end of the day nicely tired, happy with the walk, and eating what you found? Well, I like it. Makes me happy. It’s one of those good things in life.
Anyway, below some impressions of the day, that is, some of the pictures I took with my phone. Perhaps not such a good quality of images, but believe me that the real thing is very beautiful. I think so. Hope you like it too.
