Ukraine: Poltava Oblast – Mushroom Hunting
I went mushroom foraging my entire childhood in Belarus, starting in late June and all the way to Early November. But the combination of more southern latitude and really warm winter – and mushroom hunting turned into a surprising reality in Ukraine in May! Slippery jack mushrooms (aka maslyata in Russian) were super abundant in pine forests of the central Ukraine in Poltava Oblast – choice edible wild mushrooms, known as Suillus luteus in Latin. It is one of the oldest and widest known edible mushrooms in northern hemisphere (mostly in Europe and Canada). The Slippery Jack mushroom was first described as Boletus luteus in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus (the father of the botanical classification system), before being re-classified in 1796 as Suillus luteus. It grows in pine forests on sandy soil and is almost impossible to confuse with anything else. Perfect in soups or fried with onion and potatoes! Oh, and I even found one porcini mushroom (way too early for them in May) – the king of mushrooms! Several other, less choice mushrooms were around as well, but why bother…
