Anna Pavord: 'Late-summer rain prompts the arrival of some magical field mushrooms'

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Four field mushrooms erupted suddenly on the lawn in front of the wooden hut where I work. The suddenness is characteristic of mushrooms. It's as though some creature that usually lies quiet underground suddenly takes to blowing soft white bubble gum. Fortunately I was able to watch them closely through the window by my desk. You have to. If you pick them too soon, the flavour is not sufficiently developed. If you leave it too late, some ignorant, flat-footed pheasant will have trampled them. Or tiny white grubs will have worked their way up through the stem, where they don't much matter, into the cap, where they do.












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