Mushroom picking at HCU
on Postcard from Uganda (Uganda), 01/May/2010 21:22, 34 days ago
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These photos are of the HCU staff picking mushrooms in the flower beds in the compound. The mushrroms apparently appear annually in early December and last for about 3 days. They seemed quite literally to come from nowhere and grew inches high over night! One day there were small piles of orange coloured sandy soil in the flower beds, which I was assured hadn't been put there, it 'comes naturally' so I was told; the next day the mushrooms could be seen sprouting through; by the third day, the mushrooms were 2-3 inches high and ready for picking. Everyone was out picking at lunch time, basically whatever you picked was yours. They were then left to dry in the afternoon sun to dry. I was told that they are rarely eaten fresh, but dried and ground and then added to the 'sauce' or 'soup' the words used to describe a stew of beans,, meat or groundnuts.
