Looking for Funghi

October 13, 2006 Today we had a very interesting afternoon. Actually, it started around 11:30 when Felice came over and asked if we wanted to go look for funghi (mushrooms). Larry said OK and then Felice asked if I wanted to go,too. I wanted to be sure he really wanted me to go so I asked and he said three people are better than two! So off we went. Larry asked him about the license for mushrooms that we had read about--you need to go to a class and prove you know which ones are poisonous and which ones aren't. Felice just shrugged it off.

We headed down the road that we had walked before, looking for tartuffi, but continued even further. Then we stopped and had a picnic! Felice had carried a bag with him that I thought carried tools for picking mushrooms or something, but instead he pulled out roasted pork slices, bread, and even wine--in a coca cola bottle!

Finally, we went off into the "bosco" (woods) and walked and walked. We soon found some very pretty funghi and Felice told us they were "tutto buono" so we picked the few that were there. Then he had us put them in a pile and told us we would pick them up on the way back. At times I felt as if we were going to get lost because we went through terrain that no human should go through! It was like being in a Tarzan movie. There were times when I could barely make out Larry and Felice through the foliage. Sometimes it was like walking through a briar patch with branches getting caught on your clothes and skin! I have these wonderful shoes that are great for walking on flat surfaces, but are terrible for uneven terrain--and of course, I fell. Luckily, the men had gone on ahead so didn't see! The whole time I was struggling I kept thinking to myself, we will have to go through this again on the way out. Keep in mind that Felice is 75 years old! On top of that, he is almost blind and was wearing shoes that were like boat shoes. I am slipping and sliding and he is just walking steadily up and up and up.

After filling two bags with mushrooms we were going to look for apples. This is because two years ago, Felice had found a bunch of apple trees in that area. He and Larry went to look up this hill and Felice told me to sit down and wait--I didn't argue! So, no apples, but Felice wants Larry to check out a different path to come back up to where I am. Larry told him it was very steep, but of couse, that is the way they went. When Felice was almost to the top (with Larry's help) he made a noise like he was falling and scared me to death. He just laughed!

We gathered three different types of funghi. The first ones were orange and stained your hands when you touched them. The next ones were reddish and often looked like a flower. The last ones were a sort of maroon color. They all were about the same shape and we found big ones and little ones. This is one of the bags we filled. They look very pretty, don't they?

On the way back, Felice wanted me to use his "bastone" (stick) so I could see how much better it was to walk with one. Of course, as soon as the terrain became rough again, he took it back! Luckily, we did not come out the way we went in and for the most part we were on this road. Why we couldn't have gone in this way, I only wish I knew! This adventure took us 5 hours! It was interesting, fun, and exhausting! When we got back to the road that goes into Belforte we heard a car coming and Felice tried to get Larry to hold the bag of mushrooms, so we're guessing that you do need a license to gather them! As we handed off the funghi to Felice he told us to come over tomorrow so we could go through them together. He isn't sure that they are all "buono" so he wants to wait for some reason (maybe have someone else look at them?). Then he said after we go through the bags he will cook them and we can eat them! And I'm thinking, "Yeah, like that's going to happen!"