When we cleaned a new piece of land that had been overrun by acacia trees this spring, we discovered a couple hawthorn/thornapple trees hidden beneath the jungle. The hawthorn berry is supposed to be very healthy and is high in pectin, but the seeds are highly poisonous. Kata bravely picked 1kg of fruit - I say bravely because the tree is very thorny. The result was a mere 3 small jars of hawthorn jam. The jam is certainly tasty, but probably not worth the effort. We had much better luck with the green tomatoes. There is surprisingly a lot one can do with green tomatoes, not just making pickles in a big crock pot like my father did, or frying them like at the Whistlestop Café (btw: a great book and a very good film adaptation). Instead, we made salsa verde, green tomato jam (thanks to Agi Sobol for the idea), and a surprisingly delicious green tomato cake. I cannot believe most people just throw out their green tomatoes! And we finally were able to harvest our own walnuts before our neighbours (not for lack of trying) stole them from us. We took in about 5 baskets - certainly enough for the year.

What we have not had enough of this year has been mushrooms. However, the drought has finally broken. This also means there is a lot of competition for what is now suddenly available after such a long wait. This is why I set out early Saturday morning in the rain. No competition.  First I headed into the hills, but I did not find any saffron milkcaps, but was disappointed. Back down among the sloe bushes I started hitting pay dirt and came home with a basket full of field blewits and charbonniers. I also found a handful of oyster mushrooms and judas ears (great for hot and sour soup!). Giant parasols were in great abundance, but were too fragile to transport with the other mushrooms.

The poisonous side of things was represented by false death caps livid pinkgills, destroying angels and yellow stainers.

Going with my mushrooming class to Jávor Kút the next day also provided a lot of insight. I saw several poisonous mushrooms that will be on the exam for the first time in the flesh. Large populations of the beautiful but deadly fly agaric were represented, as were rosy bonnets and brown roll rims. Competition was stiff on this, the first good weather day in a week, but we still had some luck. I found quite a few peppery boletes around the fly agarics, that when dried can provide a spicy kick to your food. I also picked quite a few wood blewits and honey fungus (only the caps are edible, and only after 20 minutes of cooking!),  as well as some bay boletes, common puffballs and saffron milkcaps. I also found some brown and orange cup fungus, and parasol mushrooms. Although I did not have the greatest success finding boletes, I did spot the most beautiful sight of the day - a mass of pear-shaped or stump puffballs. At home, we dried the peppery boletes over the stove and ground up the result for a bit of cooking spice.

A few days later, acting on a tip from a colleague, we went to a place in nearby Aggtelek to pick some horse mushrooms. Someone had beaten us to it, but the area, heavily trafficked by children, was still full of both edible and poisonous fungi. We picked a basketful of mouse ears and weeping boletes, as well as a few young shaggy inkcaps. It is important to remember to only pick mouse ears under pine, otherwise you could easily mix them up with similar looking poisonous mushrooms. In addition, only pick the young, completely white, closed capped shaggy inkcaps - and these cannot be consumed with alcohol! We also spotted a population of honey fungus, and beautiful but inedible Pholiota populnea. I wanted to be sure about the mouse ears, so we stopped by to speak with mushroom experts Gábor and Krisztina Koltay. Krisztina was busy cooking up a batch of something yummy, by Gábor confirmed what we had picked. At home, we peeled the slimy skin off the tops of the boletes and fried them up. An unbelievable amount of water came out, but we were still left with a good amount of beautiful yellow mushroom meat that Kata mixed in with some cream and garlic over pasta. We found poisonous panther caps and earthballs in the same area.

Honey Fungus can be a mushroomer's paradise or a farmer's hell, depending on your perspective. This mushroom can occupy an area tens of kilometres across. Also known as the St. Michael mushroom and the humungous fungus, it is a delicacy, but difficult to eradicate once established. I am not a big fan, but Sányi said there was something I really must see out in the forest, a real treat. We set out in very thick fog and walked for an hour until we entered a section of forest we hunted unsuccessfully in last year. Every stump, in fact, almost every square inch was covered with thick masses of honey fungus! I have never seen the like. We filled three big paint buckets within half an hour and only scratched the surface. Sányi paid some debts with two of the buckets, while I lugged the third one home to try and make pickled mushrooms from the smaller ones. It is important to note that only the caps are edible, and these must by cooked for at least 20 minutes before consumption!

We attended the Bódvaszilasi Cabbage Festival with Kata's family for the third year in a row, held annually by the Bódvaszilas Friendship Circle. The food, as usual was delicious - everything of course focused on cabbage as the main ingredient. You could taste to your heart's desire for free, and large portions of cabbage strudel, soup, stuffed cabbage...were cheaply available for 150-600 HUF. A welcome addition this year was the bar, but like previous years, warm drinks would have been welcome. For the kids, the goat races were replaced by a creative maze with 3 big rabbits that kids could lead to the finish line by dangling bits of cabbage on sticks in front of them. The children could not get enough of this.