I remember a time when we Brits ate only field mushrooms (Call for a ban on New Forest fungus foragers, 25 July). As soon as travel became possible after the second world war, my German mother’s sisters came to visit us, one by one. Tante Else loved walking in the countryside. Coming from starving Germany, she was astonished to find, in plenty in the woods on Ashdown Forest, every kind of edible fungus but not a single person picking any. Day after day she returned with a basketful, but fellow walkers pulled faces of disgust when she showed them her bounty. Our house was festooned with mushrooms threaded on strings and hung up to dry ready for the winter. On her return home she presumably had a large pack in her luggage. And presumably we ate the rest over the winter. But I can’t remember!
Johanna Collis
London
