Changes

Have you been mushroom picking this year yet? If you're Polish, then your answer is likely yes. In Poland, gathering wild mushrooms in a forest is something of a national pastime. As reported by a polling agency, more than three quarters of Poles have engaged in this activity and more than two fifths do it on a regular basis.<refname=cbos>{{Cyt

Mushroom season lasts from late summer to mid-autumn, but Polish people preserve most of the fungi they collect, so that they can enjoy them all year long. This they do mostly by drying and to a lesser extent by pickling in vinegar (mostly in the case of slippery jacks and other species which don't lend themselves to drying) or, less traditionally, freezing. The Poles typically gather mushrooms for their own use, but they face competition from professional gatherers who, though less numerous (only 1% of all mushroomers), pick much larger quantities than recreational mushroom hunters do. <ref name=cbos/>