Hunting Houby

Today was a perfect autumn day in south Bohemia.  The air was crisp this morning, but the afternoon warmed up to one of those lay in the grass and try to produce enough Vitamin D to last the winter kind of days.  We participated in the most classic autumn Czech activity on this perfect day - we went a hunting houby.

Houby is the Czech word for wild mushrooms.  A common question from us is, Snaš houby?  Do you know mushrooms?  More often than not the answer is yes.  On weekends in the Fall people flock to the woods with their basket in hand to search for houby.  By the way, they "pick" houby.  When we call it "hunting" houby everyone gets a kick out of the image.

The woods here are filled with mushrooms of all shapes, sizes and colors.  And while all mushrooms are edible, only a few can be eaten more than once.  So when the Chrdlovi Family asked if we wanted to go hunt houby, we dropped all other plans, put on our walking shoes, and headed for the woods.

We took a train from Česke Budejovice to Černý Dub (Black Oak).  There we hiked west into the woods.  The going was slow with Silas and their 22 month old Tomaš.  Once in the woods we were greeted by an endless variety of mushrooms that ought not be eaten.  Aleš, however, quickly found a few keepers.  And shortly Kristine could be heard wahooing from the hill across a little creek.

Of the edibles, the grand prize is the hribek (left).  Of the poisonous, the most striking (and very common) is the muchomurka červená (right).  Note I didn't have the camera along so I got these photos off the web.

Well, it has been a dry year and the word on the street is that the houby are not so plentiful this year.  Indeed that was our experience.  We found some now and then, but we mostly walked and talked.  Like Henry David Thoreau said, though, a bad day houby hunting is better than a good day at the office. 

We covered a lot of ground, ate some lingering blueberries (I couldn't believe it), and came across a monument to Captain Raymond F. Reuter.  Captain Reuter's P-51 Mustang was shot down while attacking the airstrip at Plava on April 17, 1945.  There is a plaque set into a rock on a hillside across the valley from Plava.  It is adorned with ribbons, pebbles, candles and plastic flowers. 

Finally we ambled into Boršov nad Vltava and (eventually) caught a bus for home.  Our booty is shown below...

From Houby

Once home, we removed the scabby parts on the houby, fried up some onions and the houby, added some beef broth, salt and pepper, cooked it for about 10 minutes, thickened it with flour, then added heavy whipping cream to make a really good sauce to eat over dumplings.  Aleš explained that if you get this dish in a restaurant they'll give you a big piece of beef with a little bit of mushroom sauce, but Czechs prefer to have it without beef so as not to interfere with the houby flavor.  Here's the result...

From Houby

Dobrou Chuť!

Peter