What do you mean never mind? Do you tell I'm right on my money in regard to you having an unhealthy relationship with magic mushrooms? Hence a ready explanation for your posts here - hallucinogenic factor in play. Enjoy your Sunday, and your mushrooms lol!
Mushrooms used to be considered healthy, but now you need to watch out for heavy metals.
I remember that in the socialist era, Polish men would go mushroom picking, and you could guarantee with 100% certainty that they all got severely drunk, sometimes including the driver. It was much "safer" for them to drive drunk because the police were more focused on arresting political enemies than drunk drivers, but many of these trips still resulted in fatalities. To keep their wives from complaining, they would buy just mushrooms from local stands.
I see Poles are also manically obsessed with their mushrooms.
Is it on the same level as Russians, however?
My favorite Russian journalist (print, not tv - tv is Parfenov) - Andrei Kolesnikov - wrote an epic article about mushroom hunters 20 years ago or so.
Source: kommersant.ru/doc/153729
This is how the article opens (Google Translate):
A neighbor of the head of the Voronezh Emergency Situations Ministry's Civil Defense Department recently suffered mushroom poisoning. Fortunately, the poisoning wasn't severe, as he didn't have time to eat much. They pumped his stomach and discharged him, begging to go home.
Why did he beg, you ask? He simply wanted to finish the mushrooms, because he didn't want to let them go to waste, after all. After finishing them, he died in the hospital a few days later.
Another excerpt:
"There are no former mushroom pickers, just as there are no former drug addicts. Those who have tried it once will try again. Only this time they will be smarter and won't wander around Central Park like a fool, mushrooms in hand, in full view of the police. Instead, they'll go where they need to go and do it."
The article is a great read for anyone interested.
The journalists interviews many Russians poisoned by mushrooms, who want to do nothing else but to go and hunt for mushrooms.
And it is a common mistake, particularly among foreigners, to assume that mushroom hunting is something undertaken only by poor people looking to supplement a meagre diet. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Among the most ardent mushroom pickers you will find politicians, actors, and even famous footballers. Only recently, I watched an interview with former Polish national-team player and Olympic silver medallist from Barcelona, Wojciech Kowalczyk, who spoke of mushroom hunting as something he simply could not imagine his life without.
It is, indeed, one of those enduring mysteries of Slavic soul. :)
The mushroom - it lacks a brain.... or rather, its intelligence is of a different type to our human kind.
It wishes no one any ill will, it does not know good or evil.
One could almost argue that it does not care whether we humans exist or not, but that would be incorrect. The mushroom, strange as it may sound, wants to be eaten.
Many millions of years ago, before we became separated into different kingdoms, the mushrooms were our brothers. This is why we still share something like 30% of common DNA.
But it is fair to say that the mushroom understands us better, than we understand the mushroom.
Many millions of years ago, before we became separated into different kingdoms, the mushrooms were..
This is sounding like the marketing materials for a Russian mushroom cult, lol. I'm sure such things actually do exist btw, nobody loves fungi more than Russians and Poles.
