Sure, Russian cuisine has lot of fancy foods, like caviar. But get a Russian talking about food and the conversation will quickly turn to mushrooms and a memorable moment gathering them in the woods.

Foraging is a tough concept for Americans. We have become accustomed to getting our food on plastic trays from a refrigerated counter, and have long forgotten what the real stuff tastes like. But there are lots of mushrooms out in the wild and Russians love to go find them--and use them. And even during the darkest days of the Soviet Union's food shortages, mushrooms were still out there, free for the taking. My key Russian food reference, "Please To The Table", by Anya von Bremzen, lists 34 mushroom recipes, more than for almost any other pantry item.

Though I am largely confined now to finding my mushrooms in a supermarket, I once got to forage for them. As a teenager, I spent a summer in France. One evening, before bedtime, I was told that we would be getting up very early the next morning. I picked out the word champignon from the ensuing conversation, but didn't understand much else because my French was still terrible. I assumed we were going to the farmers market in the big city that was 30 minutes away. But the next morning, I found myself in the woods, bag and knife in hand getting a crash course in chanterelles. I can still remember their taste at dinner that night.

I cook with mushrooms a lot. But I have been thinking of them even more than usual lately because the first meal that I served to the Russian grandmother who was my translator when my little guy came home was centered around mushroom barley soup. Nina was an enormous help in those early days--she even went to preschool with my son for a bit to bridge the language gap with his teachers.

But alas Nina's grandchildren felt she should be living closer to them and she moved away recently. So I took out some of the porcini mushrooms I had put away thanks to my new food dryer this summer and made a batch of soup. "This was Nina's favorite," my little guy said.

The next time you are out on a hike in the woods after a nice rain, take a look down at boot level. It might make you feel a little more connected to your child's Russian heritage.

Image credit: OldGreySeaWolf at Morguefile.com