Wednesday, August 16

This morning at 8:00 a man arrived from Karelia bringing buckets of mushrooms. Not just any mushrooms, but chanterelles – or kantarelli, as mushroom lovers call them in Finland.

We bought a small bucket and later I photographed them.

Kantarelli do not grow to order, and nor can you plant them. They only grow in the wild in places that they decide. People hunt them in forests every autumn and keep very quiet about any locations they might have discovered. I therefore remain surprised that this man seems to have a large supply: enough to make it worth his while driving from Karelia to Helsinki.

But then, I also get surprised when I see them in shops, and they seem to manage to get deliveries every year.