Life with Mushroom

It ought to be a folk saying: He who picks mushrooms as a child is addicted for life. My addiction to грибы began at the age of 4. Ever since, these “meat of the forest” have been a beloved part of my life.

This addiction is hard to explain to the uninitiated. What’s so attractive about combing through the moss under pine trees in search of the most precious and noble of all mushrooms—the белый гриб (white mushroom, a.k.a. боровик)? Or why should one endure countless mosquito bites just to spot the brown cap of a подберёзовик (literally, “the one under the birch tree”). But do it once—uncover these mushrooms on your own and then sup on soup made from them an hour later—and you’ll hardly notice the scratches on your face from tree branches or how soaked your feet are from tromping through a swamp in search of a cool, red-haired подосиновик (literally “the one under the aspen tree,” this mushroom, in fact, often prefers to nest under ferns near former swamps.

If the early bird gets the worm, he also gets the best mushrooms. A dedicated mushroom hunter sets out no later than 5 am, better yet 3 or 4 o’clock. That way, he has the forest all to himself—before less avid грибники go on the prowl. Of course, it’s tough to get up so early, but then, as the proverb has it, назвался груздем—полезай в кузов (literally, “if you want to call yourself a big white mushroom, you have to get into the basket”).

Regardless of the time of day, the best time for mushroom “shopping” in the forest is shortly after a грибной дождь—“mushroom rain”—a very special, light rain that falls when the sun is shining and stimulates the growth of the tender грибница—the mushroom root.

By the way, here is a linguistic secret: The regular way to say “picking mushrooms” is ходить за грибами. But when your dacha neighbor sees you in rubber boots, carrying a woven basket and asks, “Куда?” (“Where are you off to?”), it is much more stylish (and worthy of a true грибник) to respond “По грибы!” (rather than “за грибами!”)

Of course, the truly competitive грибник may try to put his neighbor off the scent by saying he is going berry picking. Every грибник has his own special грибные места (“mushroom-rich places”), and the best way to keep those places secret is (aside from getting up very early) to never let anyone know when you are going to visit them.

When something is taking off in Russia, just as in English, it can be said that this thing (say restaurants) is mushrooming, but we say it more literally, that they “are growing like mushrooms after rain”—растут как грибы после дождя.

But mushrooms do not always have positive connotations. A grumpy old person can be called a старый гриб (“old mushroom”), and if someone has a wrinkled, weatherbeaten face, we say he is “like a wrinkled mushroom”—как сморщенный гриб.

The poisonous toadstool called the поганка is known to all Russian mushroomers, especially its most lethal variety, the бледная поганка (“pale toadstool”). Such notoriety was bound to work its way into slang, and parents in the 1930s-1940s, when angry with their progeny, might say: “Ах ты поганка!”(“Oh, you toadstool!”) A popular TV cartoon in the 1970s featured a водяной (a sort of water demon) who sang:

Я водяной—я водяной
Никто не водится со мной
Эх, жизнь моя жестянка — ну её в болото
Живу я как поганка — а мне летать охота!

I am the water demon, I am
Nobody wants to deal with me
My life is like a tin can, it belongs in a swamp
I live like a toadstool yet I dream of flying!

There is also the popular folk saying, Если бы да кабы, да во рту росли грибы (то был бы не рот, а целый огород). Literally, it means “If it weren’t for this and that, mushrooms would be growing in one’s mouth (but then it wouldn’t be a mouth, but a whole garden).” It means stop indulging in wishful thinking, stop fantasizing.

Finally, there is the proverb popular during the Stalin era: Ешь пирог с грибами, а язык держи за зубами (“Eat your pie with mushrooms, but keep your tongue behind your teeth.”) In other words, “Hear much, speak little.” This was quite useful wisdom then, when the price of a wrong word could be imprisonment or worse. But it has relevance for an avid грибник—for he who wants to eat mushroom pie had better keep quiet about his грибные места!