What grows under the beeches

Three days after the first real rain of autumn, usually in early October, the beech forest across the valley starts producing mushrooms, and Petros disappears into it every morning after breakfast with a basket and a knife.

He picks four kinds and only four: porcini, the chanterelles that grow in the moss by the stream, the hedgehog mushrooms under the older trees, and the parasols in the clearings. Everything else stays where it is. He has picked here for twenty years and he still takes anything doubtful to the pharmacist in Kipi, who has a book.

If you want to go with him, ask the evening before. He leaves at nine, walks slowly, talks very little, and will show you how to cut rather than pull. What you find goes into dinner: porcini with hilopites and walnuts, or on toast from the wood oven with a fried egg.

Please do not pick on your own unless you really know. And the forest is protected: a small basket for dinner is fine, a car full for the market is not.