Service Description

Autumn is a time when Eastern Europeans go mushroom-picking. Then they show off to my husband (I got one that was THIS big!) - and sometimes they are surprisingly bigger than you’d expect. Here is a charming 19th century book documenting the biodiversity of mushrooms in England, written and illustrated by a female author named F.M. Lewis over 40 years (1860–1902). In Chinese thought mushrooms are one-legged animals (they are indeed closer to the animal kingdom than the plant kingdom). We will make our own book of wiggly one-legged fungi friends and faithfully reproduce them as accurately as possible (some are poisonous). We will dive into fungal lore and mushroom mythology. The lingzhi mushroom is the ‘mushroom of immortality’ and linked to the ruyi stone - the Chinese cintamani. There are cloud ears, wood ears, silver ears and snow ears. The Caterpillar tells Alice to eat one side of a mushroom to make her grow smaller, and the other to make her grow bigger. There are other kinds of magic mushrooms. And ones to make you look younger. And then there is mushroom soup. Mushrooms are a poor person’s meat. I love chanterelles, ceps, straw mushrooms and especially truffles. What are your special shrooms? Mushrooms are medicine. Mushrooms will save the world.