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Safe and sustainable mushroom foraging

Mushrooms are beautiful and mysterious organisms that live mostly as a mycelial mat in the soil. The functional structure we see growing above ground is the reproductive, spongy structure that grows by soaking up water and disperses spores. Mushroom hunting is a beloved autumn activity in France, one that without the proper knowledge can be dangerous  and also destructive to future harvesting.The etiquette of mushroom picking – That there are (or should be) common sense rules when it comes to the harvesting of food resources in the wild, we don’t only mean that when it comes to identifying edible mushrooms some knowledge is required. It also means leaving something for the next person that comes along… A courtesy that runs so much deeper than what’s right in front of us. In 1833, the British economist William Forster Lloyd wrote about the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’, a citation that to this day is …