Last modified on Tue 16 Mar 2021 18.15 EDT
Every autumn when the Swiss go out to collect mushrooms, before they return home in the evening to dunk them in fondue, they hand their basket to the Pilzkontrolleur. This mushroom inspector will pluck out any toxic fungi and send them home with what is safe to eat.
The fashion for foraging has made it to Australia, but locally there are no Pilzkontrolleuer offices to visit with your harvest.
Ecologist Alison Pouliot says that while Indigenous Australians have the “oldest foraging culture in the world”, much of Australian society has traditionally been mycophobic – afraid of mushrooms – thanks to the influence of equally fungal-fearing British forebears. Now, waves of immigration from continental Europe and Asia and, more recently, high end restaurant trends, means mushroom foraging is “increasing whether we agree with it or not”.