21 November 2010

Have basket, have mushrooms...

While other worlds are concerned about nothing but global warming, our Piemonte world also worries about the continuity of its funghi supply...

At all of the local markets in Autumn, there are bountiful supplies of wicker baskets for sale. I thought the locals were using them to decorate their homes for winter but I've since been told otherwise.

Apparently, in Piemonte it is illegal to collect mushrooms in anything other than wicker baskets.

The gaps in wicker baskets allow funghi spores from the mushrooms that have been collected to fall out and thus ensure regermination the following year.

It's a wonderful sight seeing the locals wandering about the fields in their autumn woollens, caps and gumboots and carrying wicker baskets.

It looks so pure and traditional...and somehow tied up in that purity and tradition is a deep respect for nature...

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