The famous Hungarian writer Mikszáth Kálmán once said: “books are like mushrooms: some are tasty and nourishing, others are toxic and poisonous” and he couldn’t be more right! Sometimes even experienced foragers would easily mix up the most common and harmless mushrooms of all, the champignons, with the most dangerous mushrooms, the killer agarics. The same with books!
The ancient Hungarians have built the most common feature of mushrooms, their rapid growth, into their vernacular, in the form of proverbs and aphorisms. This is how analogies like: “it grows like mushrooms after rain” came into being.
In the following, we will present some other of these proverbs and aphorisms, used by Hungarians, regarding mushrooms.
The first such proverb that we would like to present is: “mushrooms grow even without being sown” (in Hungarian: a gomba mag nélkül is terem). The interpretation of this proverb, in Hungarian would be that valuable things are hard to find. This illustrates that in ancient times, mushrooms were not really appreciated for what they are appreciated nowadays: for being an excellent source of nutrients, proteins and antioxidants, but seen as usual meal ingredients.
Did you eat poisonous mushrooms?! (in Hungarian: bolondgombát evett). This proverb refers to people who act strange, as do people who eat poisonous mushrooms, because of the severe side effects of them.
Another mushroom-proverb would be: all mushrooms are all right; only people are strange, meaning that nature is perfect as it is, but people act strange sometimes.
Heroes are not mushrooms that can grow in every manure, is another old Hungarian proverb that means that valuable people are not easy to find.
Not everything that grows fast is a mushroom. (in Hungarian: Nem mind gomba, ami hamar nő), a proverb that means not to judge things and people by the surface, superficially.
He grew up like a poisonous mushroom. (in Hungarian: Felnőtt mint a bolondgomba) meaning that one grew up, but remain on a very low intelligence level.
It is easy to smash a mushroom (in Hungarian: könnyű a gombát letaposni), means that it is easy to defeat someone who can't defend his/her self.
Truffles do not grow anywhere. (in Hungarian: nem minden sövény alatt terem a szarvasgomba) means that what is really valuable is also rare.
I didn't eat poisonous mushroom! (in Hungarian: nem ettem bolondgombát!), this is said when someone is asked to do something out of the ordinary, and one is not up to go out of his/her comfort zone much less beyond.
In addition to the fact that mushrooms are very nutritious meal ingredients, suitable for being included in any tasty grab-and-go meal for students, there are many exciting things to know to about them. Therefore, the purpose of our Mushroom School Series is to flash some of them out. So, in three separate articles we will present the following:
- in the first article you will be able to read about mushrooms in general and about oyster mushrooms in particular;
- in the second article we will present all there is to know about champignons;
- in the third article we will present the dangers of mixing up the most ordinary mushrooms of all, the champignons, even by experienced foragers
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