I am the mom of an almost 3-year-old. Like any toddler around this age, my son particularly enjoys doing the exact opposite of what I say. And no later than yesterday, it happened again. Picture this: He was playing in our backyard after coming back from daycare. The sun was warm and I was raking some of the leaves covering my lawn. I had seen a few mushrooms growing by the trees. I tried to steer my son’s attention away from them, explaining they were dangerous. This was successful for a little while. And then I found him putting some in his mouth.
Luckily, I saw it happen right away and I was able retrieve them before he’d chewed and swallowed. But this got me thinking: I have absolutely no idea how to differentiate a comestible mushroom from a dangerous one. When outside of my house or market, I sort of assume they are all mushrooms I shouldn’t touch, even though I adore mushrooms, or as we call them in my home country, champignons.
So last night, I did what I do when I want to learn about something: I opened my podcast app, and listened to dozens of episodes about mushrooms. Since it is mushroom foraging season, I thought I’d share my favorite episodes in Le Weekend, the Friday newsletter from Frenchly. Sign up for this great run-down of Francophile things to think about and watch and see and do over the weekend here.
My criteria for this new selection was which episodes made me more comfortable around wild mushrooms, which ones made me want to go forage mushrooms in the woods and which gave me the urge to cook mushrooms.
As a reminder, here is what the headphones next to the titles mean: one headphone, like this: ? is for shorter and more tractable French and up to three headphones like this: ? ? ? for longer and more complex.
Before I present this weekend’s selection, I int to remind listeners that all of the podcasts I listened to insisted on one point: If you are a beginner, always have an expert double check what you are collecting before you eat it. In France, most pharmacists can do that free of charge. Be safe!
Les champignons sortent du bois (France Culture)
La Série Documentaire ? ? ?
What it’s about
La Série Documentaire (LSD) is a show produced by France Culture, a public radio station. “Les champignons sortent du bois” is a series from 2019 in 4 episodes on mushrooms and the microscopic world they live in. The show traces the early origins of planet Earth up until the present.
What I like about this show
As a podcast producer myself, I’ll say that LSD offers documentaries I aspire to produce myself: thorough and fascinating. Quite frankly, if you told me I’d binge a whole series about mushrooms a few days ago, I would not have believed it. But LSD is addictive. ?
An episode not to miss
While this is a 4-episode series, you can listen to each episode independently. If you could only listen to one, I’d recommend the 4th one. Here, Céline du Chéné dives deeper into the symbolism of mushrooms. She teaches us that, oddly, in science fiction, the end of the world is often associated with mushrooms. This episode shows how it took until the end of the 20th century to start seeing positive representations of mushrooms in literature and art.
Les champignons, de l’ombre à la lumière (Nouvelles Écoutes)
#111, Bouffons ? ?
What it’s about
Bouffons is a weekly show produced by Nouvelles Écoutes and hosted by Emilie Laystary. Every Wednesday, she dives into a culinary topic, which can range from locavorism to #MeToo in the cooking industry.
What I like about this show
I am French: I love good food and like my French countrypeople, I like to talk about it. I really enjoy Bouffons (which means let’s eat) as it expands your culinary horizons as well as gets you to think a bit further about society.
An episode not to miss
Episode #111 is about mushrooms. In this fairly short episode (35 min), Laystary interviews a pharmacist who has a passion for the fungic world and offers guided harvests in the woods. She also discusses the exceptional medicinal, nutritional and even spiritual qualities of mushrooms with a food journalist. Really interesting episode!
5 champignons comestibles faciles à identifier
Nature Aventure Survie ? ?
What it’s about
Nature, Aventure, Survie (literally meaning Nature, Adventure and Survival) is a show hosted by Alban Cambe, a journalist for the magazine Survival. He offers tips and answers questions from his audience about bushcraft and survivalism.
An episode not to miss
I did not listen to all the episodes but rather this specific one. This one is all about how to identify what’s comestible. I love how practical this episode was. In just 30 minutes, the host immerses us in the woods with him and we can walk away with concrete tips to be safe while indulging your love of mushrooms. If you want to be extra cautious, this episode is also available on YouTube with pictures. PSA: Don’t use mobile apps to identify mushrooms!
La truffe (France Inter)
2000 ans d’histoire ? ?
What it’s about
Truffles are very ancient mushrooms. We now know that they were alive around 3500 years ago. One might think that with such a history, there is very little unknown about truffles. Yet truffles still hold many mysteries.
An episode not to miss
Truffles! Need I say more, seriously? Truffle oil, truffle cheese, truffle fries… Truffles have literally invaded the food scene. They are very expensive and rare. Why? Where do these mushrooms come from? How did they make it through history? Do you know they contain steroids and have aphrodisiac virtues, attracting men but repulsing women? All these questions and more are answered in this mouth-watering episode.
Anne-Fleur Andrle is a Boston-based French-American podcast producer. She hosts a French Morning show called, French Expat, where she documents the journeys of French-speaking expats around the world. She is so passionate about podcasts that she created a podcast about it, called Génération Podcast, and has a weekly curated newsletter with French podcasts that she thinks are not to miss. She also consults for various organizations to help ramp up their podcast footprint.
