Honoring the past

Today, I've honored my ancestors.

I ventured into the realm of the Norwegian elk. I faced puddles and moss, elk droppings and hungry mosquitos. I warded off evil in the form of spiderwebs and dry twigs, strategically placed in eye-height. And I lived to tell the tale. All of this, to pick some mushrooms.

Let's go back a few hundred, oh hell, let's make it 1200 years. Scandinavia is ruled by long haired men with cabin fever. The winters are long, hard and boring. The summers are short and rainy. All work and no play makes Eirikr a dull boy. So his wife begs him to take his friends fishing or something. She packs his lunch (this is a Norwegian tradition dating back to the stone age), and kicks him out. He rows his boat aimlessly in the North Sea, until lunchtime. Then, he wolfs down everything in his lunchbox, including the little, red toadstool one of the kids accidentally put in there.

This is where the fun starts. Fly Agaric, or Amanita Muscaria, has hallucinogenic properties. O hai, said Eirikr, this is different!

And so the tale of the berserks begun. Let's not get into detail about the horrendous things the Vikings did while under the influence. All I know, is that they went straight to the forest for more when they got home. My point is simply that I, as my foremothers before me, went to the forest to find mushrooms for my long haired man.

Behold my treasure:

The maggots beat me to it. This was all I got after two hours of wading knee deep in elk droppings. At some point, I eyed an especially shiny Fly Agaric and wondered if it would make me burn and pillage the kindergarten when I went to pick up the kids. I thought better of it, and decided it was time to honor my mother as well as my great-great-great... oh, you get the gist. So I went shopping for mushrooms in stead. Whipped up a fabulously simple pasta dish with chanterelles and Albatrellus Ovinus (no english name as far as I can google, but in Norwegian it's called Fåresopp), some garlic, thyme, butter and parmesan.

The long haired man was happy. Then he went off to play with his friends. I will not be surprised if he loots and plunders the place. To honor his ancestors, I mean.