Everything sprouts

Mushroom pickers are in paradise this year

Chanterelles like these make many people's eyes light up like LED lamps(Bild: Gabriele Moser)

The "English early summer" with lots of rainfall and cool temperatures provided ideal conditions for mushrooms & co. The tasty creatures can be seen much earlier than usual this year. Walkers are literally stumbling across the culinary delights on offer in the woods and meadows. 

Those who love mushrooms are currently going into raptures: Although the "English", i.e. rainy and sometimes cool, early summer literally spoiled the mood of many countrymen, the mushrooms sprouted like never before due to the ideal conditions: "The vegetation is three weeks earlier than usual. We gave a talk at a secondary school the previous week and had around a hundred different types of mushrooms with us - all freshly picked, of course," says Otto Stoik (76) from the Austrian mushroom consultants' association in Linz, who has to really hold himself back from going into raptures.

Tasty magic mushroom
But what is already ready to pick in the forest? Collector Stoik says: "Everything, really: chanterelles, gentlemen's mushrooms, spruce boletus and sun boletus, parasols, saffron umbrellas. Everything you can imagine is sprouting up at the moment. It's absolutely outstanding and a huge joy."

Mushroom "pope" Otto Stoik(Bild: Dostal Harald)

Forager Stoik also takes up the cudgels for the witch's ear mushroom, which has few friends: "It's a great edible mushroom, but I know that many people dread it. It's called the witch's bolete because when you cut it open, it changes color from yellow to dark blue within three seconds. People used to find that scary, they couldn't explain it and thought it was magic."

Snails as an indicator
A local inspection on the Mühlviertler Sternstein showed just how much is currently in the forest and on its edge. A hiker had a sack full of mushrooms and credibly claimed that he had practically stumbled across them.