The Good Life in Aggtelek National Park Part XXX: Tornabarakony Village Day, Fun with Foxes, National Park Tours, and of course - More Mushrooming

Chris, Nora and Nora's son Abel came to visit us this weekend. Chris was blissfully unaware, but I had plans for us on Saturday morning. Kata made plum dumplings, blackberry dumplings and cottage cheese dumplings for dinner, and I threw together a big salad from the garden. The potatoes for the dumpling dough came from our garden, and were exquisite.

Sanyi came by at 5am to pick us up for mushroom hunting. Surprisingly, I did not have to jump on his bed to wake him up at 4:30am, which I am sure Nora was also thankful for. I equipped him with his own bucket and knife and we were off to Véres Part (Bloody Bank) in search of chanterelles as the morning fog slowly lifted over the Bodva Valley. Just as Sanyi had done with me, I picked a young and more mature Green Brittlegill (zöldgalamb), and a chanterelle (rokagomba) and put them in Chris' bucket and said to him, "always compare what you find to what is in your bucket." Of course, just like me, he was still interested in picking any mushrooms he saw. It took me perhaps 10 excursions, or 40 hours of mushrooming before I finally spotted a chanterelle on my own without Sanyi's help. Chris on the other hand immediately started spotting them. I admit, I was envious. But I am happy to say that even for me it was a very good day for chanterelles - my best ever. I think we each picked half a bucket, as well as a good load of Green Brittlegills and a few Caesars (uri gomba/chazar gomba). We did not spot any Blushers (szamocza), Parasols (őzlabú), Ceps or Bay Boletes (tinoru/varganya), but I did find several big Devil's Bolette (disznó tinorú) that are both rare and quite poisonous.

I received a great present from Simon and Dori last week, John Wright's River Cottage Mushroom Handbook. A fascinating, well-written and often funny book, I am sure this will be one of many I acquire through the years on the subject. I am now searching for an equivalent in Hungarian if anyone can make a recommendation. I never realised that mushrooms are organs, not organisms. The main body of the fungus, which can be several km in diameter, produces mushrooms on the surface when it feels in danger from environmental conditions. Mushrooms are in fact a fungus' sexual organs, and shoot spores to reproduce, sometimes 50000, and sometimes several trillion! in the case of a single Giant Puffball mushroom. The first half of the book is about edible mushrooms, and I was thinking "Oh boy, I know that one!," "I've seen that one!" and "Oh! That's edible too?!" The second half of the book was instantly sobering as I read about the many look-alike often deadly examples. My dampened enthusiasm led me to vow again to only go mushroom hunting with Sanyi. I also learned that what I thought were Bay Boletes are actually Ceps, and Witch's Butter is also called Chicken of the Woods. The book includes a very handy identification flowchart spanning several pages, but is still nothing compared to the author's 500 page version. The last few pages of the book include mouth-watering mushroom-based recipes from the River Cottage TV series and the River Cottage Café.

After having a breakfast of zucchini bread and körözött, and the processing the mushrooms, we proceeded to the small village of Tornabarakony for their annual Village Day celebrations. We had an excellent time last year and were really looking forward to a repeat experience. Chris and I were quite tired after the 3.5 hour morning hike up and down the hills, and as a result, I was less interested and less patient than the event deserved. The folk musicians and dancers were excellent as usual, but I just wanted to find some shade and relax. The programme even featured the well-known bard Andras Berecz. The kenyerlangos (Hungarian pizza) baked in an outdoor stucco oven was very disappointing, but the others said that the marha pörkölt (beef stew) was delicious. There was a distinct lack of any local producers or any other products for sale until the late afternoon when András Bari and his wife appeared with his organic mangalica (Hungarian hairy pig) sausages and bacon. After tasting some, Chris and Nora bought a couple sausages, for the amazingly low price of 3200 Huf/kg.  Based between Szendrő and Büdöskútpuszta, they also have organic vegetables (bari.andras@freemail.hu, 06-70-456-8829). We took a stroll around the beautiful village before departing for home and starting the grill for dinner. The lovely Lavender House which hosted a very good exhibition last year appears to have changed hands and been both renovated and fallen into disrepair within the same year. The Lily of the Valley House and its garden are still a standout. Also of note is the installation of a solar water heating system at the festival.

Chris grilled some tandoori chicken legs, a few turkey burgers I mixed with chanterelles from the morning, and zucchini from the garden. The foxes of course could not have picked a better time to reappear. After many attempts to scare them off, we felt forced to move our peaceful sunset dinner inside. The next morning we discovered that the foxes had managed to tip over the hot grill. We were lucky there was nothing flammable in the area. We received a fox trap from the local authority the next day to try and relocate them, baited it with fine Hungarian grey cattle salami from Hortobágy National Park, and waited. The two adolescents came on cue just before the rain storm and energetically frolicked about for some time before investigating the trap. One was cautious, but the other entered and ate all the salami before sauntering off without the trap slamming shut. Hmmm.

I made some scrambled eggs with chantarelles for breakfast before we joined the noon Baradla Cave Intermediate Tour from Red Lake. I have still only been on a handful of the many cave tours offered at Aggtelek National Park, but this tour remains my favourite so far. Here, we met up with two of Kata's best friends Era and Agi that are here for a few days. The previous evening they had joined the Hot Sunset Tour that departs every Saturday in August from in front of the Baradla Cave Aggtelek Entrance. They had a wonderful time, and said that Ranger Béla Váczi's guiding was both very pleasant and informative. After coming out of the cave (10C) into the summer air (32C+) we were not sure if we needed a coffee or a beer. Both are available at the Old Mill Inn in Jósvafő, but even at 2pm it was a full house. Given the situation, the owners kindly permitted us to take our drinks across the way to the park by the banks of the Jósva Stream where I sipped my beer with my feet soaking in the water. Chris and I of course had cold beers, while the others split 2 big jugs of lemon-mint lemonade. The lemonade is literally packed with mint from the Inn's garden, and is a real bargain for 450 Huf/jug - enough for 3 tall glasses. You pay about the same per decilitre in Budapest.

We packed a basket of herbs and vegetables from our garden, as well as the mushrooms for their trip home to Budapest. They also stopped on the way in Edeleny to see the magnificently renovated palace.

R.I.P. Sammy Sams