looduskalender.ee

On September 7 a splendid mushroom week starts in Rõuge, with Viitina Loodushariduskeskus (Viitina Nature Education Centre), Rõuge Rahvamaja (Rõuge Community Centre) and Looduskalender as the main organizers. The wealth of mushrooms last year and the great interest from the public encouraged the organizers to arrange an even greater event this year, and so the calendar contains a range of different activities – mushroom rambles, a mushroom exhibition, mushroom cooking, a mushroom preserves competition, photo events, lectures and concerts.

The mushroom days bring Estonia’s mushroom experts and enthusiasts to Rõuge. On Tuesday professor Erast Parmasto talks about protecting fungi: “Can and should fungi be protected and how”, on Wednesday professor Urmas Tartes’s film of the life of insects in fungi can be seen, and on Thursday there is a photo session with Estonia’s best-known mushroom photographer, Vello Liivi. From Monday to Friday there will be mushroom rambles led by Eesti Maaülikooli’s (Estonian University for Life Sciences) mycology expert Mall Vaasma;the most interesting finds will be put up in the exposition. Most of all the 2008 exposition surprised local inhabitants who had never been aware of the fantastic range of different fungi that were growing in the woods just beyond their doorsteps. We hope to surpass last year’s total of 195 different species.

Vladislav Koržets comes to tempt the taste-buds of the culinary-minded. He will prepare a unique mushroom feast that all (or at least the quick and ready) have a chance to taste. Home cooking wizards will have the chance to show their mushroom preserves: a competition with fermented, marinated or otherwise preserved mushrooms takes place on Saturday.

Moreover, photos by well-known nature photographer Arne Ader and by Mats Kangur, the author of the winning photo in 2009 Year’s Nature Photo competition category “Animals in action”, are shown; for listening there will be concerts by traditional folk musician Jaak Johanson, and Toivo Tuberik’s piano miniatures. More information, and times for events are at www.viitinalhk.ee

Why is such a mushroom education week useful and necessary? All around us processes that we can’t see and don’t know of go on all the time. Often we can’t even imagine that something that we happen to come across is part of a vital life process. So it is with fungi. If they didn’t exist, so surely wouldn’t we. Certainly it is thus necessary to know what is what and who is who! Another aspect is that mushrooms make food on our table and in our pantries. Most of us are used to eating only a few (if any) kinds of mushrooms, mainly chanterelles, the saffron milkcaps, russulas, the boletus or cep. But the choice could be so much larger, especially considering that from lack of knowledge the real delicacies often stay in the woods, to go on with their own basic business – breaking down wood and leaf and grass litter.

Surely the brown stew fungus (Kuehneromyces mutabilis), the gypsy mushroom  (Rozites caperata), the parasol mushroom (Macrolepiota procera), the very large Cortinarius praestans, the common stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus), the shaggy mane or shaggy ink cap (Coprinus comatus) and  tens of other cap-bearers are necessary to know. And there is no better way of learning than going with a mushroom expert or a mycologist on a ramble in the forest!

So – let’s do as in the Rannap song, “Come to the forest, Go to the forest”, at the mushroom days in Rõuge from September 7 to September 13, bringing your mushroom basket along.

Dates and times – www.viitinalhk.ee