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Just like recreational mushroom hunters today have to share the forest with professionals, so was mushroom picking in times of yore practised both by peasants -- for whom it was a way to supplement their meagre diet -- and by the nobility, who saw it as a more democratic alternative to big-game hunting. Note how, in Soplicowo, only the nobles engaged in the mushroom hunt, but yet the party was still more inclusive (from the Chamberlain's little daughter to the old Tribune) than [[Epic Cooking: The Wondrous Taste of Bigos|at the bear hunt]], which was for a men -onlyaffair.

Mushrooms are often considered one of the few foodstuffs used in Old Polish cuisine which crossed class boundaries and could be found on both peasant and lordly tables.

Except that this idealized picture isn't quite true. There existed a mushroom hierarchy which paralleled the social one: the few choice varieties were reserved for the nobility, while commoners had to content themselves with more or less edible, but certainly less flavourful, species. Mind you, the forest and everything one could find there, belonged to the lordnobleman. The peasants were usually allowed to obtain certain goods in the lord's forest products, but they had to bring the better species of mushrooms as payment to the lord's his estate. One of these species was obviously the penny bun, which explains why it's also called "king bolete" in English, ''"Herrenpilz"'' ("lord's mushroom") in German and ''"borowik szlachetny"'' ("noble mushroom") in Polish. What other mushrooms did the nobles call dibs on?

This short list is validated by Old Polish recipes, which don't mention any other mushroom species. It turns out that the range of mushrooms appreciated by the high-born was quite limited. And even that only applied to the more intrepid ones who didn't listen to the dieticians' advice to stay away from all of these moistwatery, dirty and certainly unhealthy ([[Good Humour, Good Health|cold and moist in the highest degree]]) or even poisonous toadstools. Probably the oldest Polish recipe for mushrooms is the one given by Maciej Miechowita, court physician to King Sigismund I. {{ Cytat| Mushrooms, seasoned in the choiciest manner, are best when tossed over the fence. No cure exists for their pernicious complexion. | oryg = Grzyby najlepiej, gdy najwyborniej będą przyprawione, za płot wyrzucić. Żadnego lekarstwa dla swej złości przyrodzonej nie mają.| źródło = Maciej Miechowita cyt. w: {{Cyt | nazwisko = z Urzędowa | imię = Marcin | tytuł = Herbarz polski, to jest o przyrodzeniu ziół i drzew rozmaitych, i innych rzeczy do lekarstw należących | url = https://polona.pl/item/herbarz-polski-to-iest-o-przyrodzeniv-ziol-y-drzew-rozmaitych-ksiegi-dwoie-doctora,MzM1NDA4NQ/82/ | wydawca = Drukarnia Łazarzowa | miejsce = Kraków | rok = 1595 | strony = [149] }}, own translation }} The opinion which the Polish Enlightenment-era poet and publicist Stanisław Trembecki held the worst possible opinion of mushrooms in generalwasn't much better.

This means All this meant that the peasants were still left with quite a wide range of perfectly edible mushrooms which the nobles shunned in disgust.

| The yokel's fare has always consisted of {{...}} sundry mushrooms, such as brittlegills, {{...}} tacked, fleecy and woolly milk caps, chanterelles, sooty heads, milk whites, stumpers, yellow knights, scaber stalks, butterballs; and in this abundance mistaking the poisonous ones for the good, he often pays with his health or even life.| oryg = Pożywieniem kmiotka były i są dotychczas {{...}} grzyby czyli bedłki rozliczne, jako to: syrojeszki, {{...}} chrząstki, świniarki, pieprzniki, gołąbki {{...}}, gąski, jelonki, kutmanki, opieńki, zielonki, mleczaje, babki, pożarki, maśluki; a w tej obfitości myląc się i biorąc jadowite za dobre, zdrowiem częstokroć przypłacają, albo i życiem. | źródło = Ł. Gołębiowski, ''op. cit.'', s. 31–32, own translation

Jak widaćAs you can see, tak pożądane dzisiaj pieprznikithere was a time when chanterelles, czyli kurkiso highly prized today, traktowano wtedy z tą samą podejrzliwością i pogardą, co wszelkie inne chłopskie jadłowere treated with same suspicion and contempt as all other peasant food. Niektórzy uważali je nawet wprost za trująceSome even thought them outright toxic.

}} , own translation }}

To tylko zafascynowany „pieśnią gminną” It seems that it was only Mickiewicz kazał soplicowskiej szlachcie zbierać grzybowe pospólstwo, któremu w rzeczywistości poświęciłaby tyle uwagiso fascinated by peasant culture, co my jakimś psiakomwho had the nobles of Soplicowo forage for the mushroom plebs which, in real life, they wouldn't even deign to look at.