rlsept_p-61.ps
8/16/02
11:43 AM
Page 61
survival
russian
Life with Mushrooms
t ought to be a folk saying: He who rain that falls when the sun is shining and
picks mushrooms as a child is addict- stimulates the growth of the tender
ed for life. My addiction to грибы грибница—the mushroom root.
began at the age of 4. Ever since, these
By the way, here is a linguistic secret:
“meat of the forest” have been a beloved The regular way to say “picking mushpart of my life.
rooms” is ходить за грибами. But when
This addiction is hard to explain to the your dacha neighbor sees you in rubber
uninitiated. What’s so attractive about boots, carrying a woven basket and asks,
combing through the moss
under pine trees in search
of the most precious and
But keep your tongue
Eat your pie
noble of all mushrooms—
behind your teeth!
with mushrooms ...
the белый гриб (white
mushroom,
a.k.a.
боровик)? Or why should
one endure countless mosquito bites just to spot the
brown
cap
of
a
подберёзовик (literally,
“the one under the birch
tree”). But do it once—
uncover these mushrooms
on your own and then sup
on soup made from them
an hour later—and you’ll hardly notice “Куда?” (“Where are you off to?”), it is
the scratches on your face from tree much more stylish (and worthy of a true
branches or how soaked your feet are грибник) to respond “По грибы!” (rather
from tromping through a swamp in than “за грибами!”)
search of a cool, red-haired подосиновик
Of course, the truly competitive
(literally “the one under the aspen tree,” грибник may try to put his neighbor off
this mushroom, in fact, often prefers to the scent by saying he is going berry
nest under ferns near former swamps.
picking. Every грибник has his own speIf the early bird gets the worm, he also cial грибные места (“mushroom-rich
gets the best mushrooms. A dedicated places”), and the best way to keep those
mushroom hunter sets out no later than 5 places secret is (aside from getting up
AM, better yet 3 or 4 o’clock. That way, he
very early) to never let anyone know
has the forest all to himself—before less when you are going to visit them.
avid грибники go on the prowl. Of course,
When something is taking off in
it’s tough to get up so early, but then, as Russia, just as in English, it can be said
the proverb has it, назвался груздем— that this thing (say restaurants) is mushполезай в кузов (literally, “if you want to rooming, but we say it more literally, that
call yourself a big white mushroom, you they “are growing like mushrooms after
have to get into the basket”).
rain”—растут как грибы после дождя.
Regardless of the time of day, the best
But mushrooms do not always have
time for mushroom “shopping” in the positive connotations. A grumpy old perforest is shortly after a грибной дождь— son can be called a старый гриб (“old
“mushroom rain”—a very special, light mushroom”), and if someone has a wrin-
I
kled, weatherbeaten face, we say he is “like
a wrinkled mushroom”—как сморщенный гриб.
The poisonous toadstool called the
поганка is known to all Russian mushroomers, especially its most lethal variety,
the бледная поганка (“pale toadstool”).
Such notoriety was bound to work its way
into slang, and parents in the 1930s1940s, when angry with their progeny,
might say: “Ах ты поганка!”(“Oh, you
toadstool!”) A popular TV cartoon in the
1970s featured a водяной (a sort of water
demon) who sang:
Я водяной—я водяной
Никто не водится со мной
Эх, жизнь моя жестянка — ну её в болото
Живу я как поганка — а мне летать охота!
I am the water demon, I am
Nobody wants to deal with me
My life is like a tin can, it belongs in a swamp
I live like a toadstool yet I dream of flying!
There is also the popular folk saying,
Если бы да кабы, да во рту росли грибы
(то был бы не рот, а целый огород).
Literally, it means “If it weren’t for this
and that, mushrooms would be growing
in one’s mouth (but then it wouldn’t be a
mouth, but a whole garden).” It means
stop indulging in wishful thinking, stop
fantasizing.
Finally, there is the proverb popular
during the Stalin era: Ешь пирог с
грибами, а язык держи за зубами (“Eat
your pie with mushrooms, but keep your
tongue behind your teeth.”) In other
words, “Hear much, speak little.” This was
quite useful wisdom then, when the price
of a wrong word could be imprisonment
or worse. But it has relevance for an avid
грибник—for he who wants to eat mushroom pie had better keep quiet about his
грибные места!
— Mikhail Ivanov
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002 • 61