Mushroom hunting in Istria, Part II: A meager success story, a happy success story

I awoke again, as I did during my last outing with Luka and my cousin, early in the morning. As I had done, I donned a windbreaker, over a hoodie, over an undershirt, olive-green skinny pants, and a pair of Timberland chukkas, the latter which served me well during the last trek.

Here, I learned that Timberlands will not cut it. Only galoshes of the toughest variety will suffice. Because, if you venture into deep wood during rainy season, those Timberland soles might provide you with a great, stable base to combat an uneven forest floor, but they will not prevent you from being drenched to the marrow. Inevitably, you will look like this:

And it's gonna take one heavy-duty beach towel to dry that mess off. Oh, and nothing else you wear will keep you from soaking in the godforsaken Croatian forest. The drenched trees will drench your windbreaker, which will drench your "waterproof" hoodie, and the drenched branches will yank your hoods off your hair only to drench it and your headscarf in under five seconds. You wanna find mushrooms at the right time? Pay the price. Maybe it's pneumonia, but most likely it's just the discomfort of being dropped into a dunk tank -- clothed in San Francisco-esque layers -- at the State Fair.

But it's so, so worth it.

Again, Luka drove us to another one of my cousin's spots. My cousin provided the same vague, zig-zagging direction, guiding me with her walking stick. Throughout our journey, she would urge me to keep my eyes open. "Natalie, you must LOOK. They are bright orange, so easy to find, but they are under leaves, trees. Just LOOK. LOOK."

And so we found. These beauties:

Chantrelles on the forest floor of Tinjan, Croatia. What to look  for when you search for Chantrelles. CAREFUL: There's a mushroom that's the exact same color, with the subtle difference that it possesses a "cap." Those are not good for eat.

"PICK THEM! GO!" My cousin urged me excitedly. I shared the excitement, but reacted by stopping dead in my tracks. When you finally get there, even if it is for this meager a score, you'll feel only like you've completed a job well-done.

Except you want more. Sort of like a monster of an addictive drug, without the gnarly come down. I do, however, experience foraging withdrawals.

And so we went out again, when my cousin was to stumble upon this, the "red egg."

Cue the chorus of angels.

Apparently, this is a mushroom so special, so delicate and prized that Italians eat it thinly-sliced, as a sort of carpaccio. My aunt, intrigued by her daughter's discovery, wanted to know where she'd found the king of kings in the Croatian forest. Surely, there would be more later, in that very spot. I didn't get the chance to follow up to see if that was the case.

Our haul of Chantrelles was actually quite meager. "Sometimes, I've brought back ten kilos. A whole trunk-full," my aunt reminisced about the times when she was healthy enough to make a trek into the woods. "The whole car?! It would smell like peaches." Sounds strange, but it's actually spot-on. I have encountered no farmed mushroom that approaches the aroma of those bright orange Croatian stunners, straight from the forest floor.

Teeny haul, but still a happy haul.

Don't get it twisted: ninjas have to be delicate with their catch.

On this trek, again, we came across more foragers who revealed their preferences and methods. I was stoked to find a patch of black trumpets, only to have my cousin and another older lady poo-poo them. "Ne me volim," said the tired forager with that ever-so-slight tinge of disapproval so suited to the Croatian language (that, I understood. "I don't like." Well, they're pretty. And tasty. And trendy in San Francisco, so there). We used that "lesser" mushroom as a sort of pepper in the preparation for our other fungi. My aunt and cousin simply cooked them all in cream, with beef and noodles. The uniqueness of each type of mushroom still stood out among so much rich food.

Oh, and hey, SF Instagramers: it would have been unbelievably rude to take pictures of such a simple, exquisite meal in my Croatian aunt's modest Croatian house, not to mention incredibly perplexing for her. Just create your own visual of that meal. In your minds. I've given you enough inspiration.

Foraging, Mycology. It's fascinating, nuanced, fulfilling, especially when you end up with fantastic meals at the end of it. And to have taken part in mushroom-hunting expeditions in a region where this is standard practice, revered not just by the culinary elite, was a privilege of the highest sort for a little ol' cook.

I'll pursue this in California. But without family, without that widespread enthusiasm of non-foodie, unpretentious Croats for the best of the best food the forest has to offer, I doubt my experiences will be the same. But maybe I'm just romanticizing an ideal. Perhaps seeing what the woods have to offer, no matter where I am, will be just another exciting journey.