The tips of my fingers have lately been growing darkly stained from peeling mushrooms . I prefer to nick the stalk from within their bells then put the knife aside to use my fingers to detach the peel from the upper portion.  There is something  immensely satisfying in watching the skin peel away in its long, soft strips,  leaving the fleshy covering white and open in contrast to the pink gills.   But the fingers stain especially if the gills have gone brown!  

I do this of course with the larger field mushrooms,  not with the button champignons.  In fact I have never been all that fond of the button mushrooms in themselves, as I find them tasteless compared to the robust flavour of the bigger field mushrooms though they make a fine texture enhancer in some dishes, and their  blandness works well enough in stroganoffs or even,(if you are not a gastronomic perfectionist), goulash.

Field mushrooms, now readily available in our local vegetable mart, have always been part of my culinary experiences.  I admit that what are now called field mushrooms are most probably grown on the mushroom farms, some of which are to be found in the disused railway tunnels of the mountains near Sydney, and are most likely to be a cleaner product than those from the open fields where I once gathered them.

The exotic Asian  varieties like Shiitake, Shimeji, Enokitaki , Oyster and Wood Ear now available are grown in sterilised sawdust under special conditions.  The fungi are no longer to be regarded as for instance the public has long been thought of by politicians in particular: to be Fed on bullshit and kept in the  dark.

I can remember those times when, being doubled on the bar of my father's  bicycle,  I would accompany him out to the fields near Pokolbin,  now the centre of a wonderful wine producing  district, but at that time with fewer established wineries and a lot of cattle paddocks.  Those  cattle supplied the beef for the local butchers, who incidentally had a large share in the old vineyards as well.  One morning in particular I remember, for as we went out, another gatherer was returning on his bicycle,  and I have a very vivid memory of the round wicker basket slung from his  handlebars which was mounded with mushrooms --  a dome shape protruding below the handle, all neatly packed high with the gathered fungi.  I was, in my childish way, somewhat distressed, as I thought there might be none left for us!   Fortunately there were!

In the western towns of Bathurst and Wagga where I and the family later lived, my son and I would frequently go off into the bush, sometimes but not often accompanied by my daughters, for the purpose of shooting rabbits. Very often we would return with a supplementary loading of mushrooms as well. One problem with those mushrooms was that they were often infested  with very tiny black beetles;  more protein, I suppose, if you were willing to eat them.  However we always got enough clear ones to go with the baked rabbit.

When we moved to Sydney such expeditions were not feasible, but I found that there were mushroom farms (thus called) to be purchased;  a box, and within it a large plastic bag full of mushroom compost, which one opened, kept in a dark place, and watered frequently. Within a few days, there were small mushrooms sprouting prolifically-- so prolifically that I tried my hand at pickling some.  It was a great boost to my ego when I took some jars along to a party, to have one party-goer inform me that she would not have brought them, but would have kept them all for herself.  She did indeed eat most of them!
 
I am a real Hobbit for mushrooms and enjoy cooking them simply in a butter sauce,  but now and then I experiment with the addition of herbs and sherry and so on.     I also enjoy the more exotic varieties (when I can afford them!) not only the Asian types but also the European varieties like the  Swiss Brown and even the strongly aroma-laden Porcini.  I use dried mushrooms in my Chinese cooking too.

My liking for the fungi has been handed down to my doctor son,  who, in his wanderings through the scrublands near his own north coast home, and on my block while I owned the Dondingalong property,  would return with an amazing variety of fungi. He always complained that there were not many texts for their identification.  Some may well have been poisonous,  but he took good care to check--sometimes by merely nibbling a piece and waiting. I don't think he ever found any of the psilocybes on the property but he did find a great number of different fungi. I understand that some witches of the past made use of those to fly.

My only experience of magic mushrooms or gold caps has been vicariously via Alice in Wonderland,  and I prefer to leave it at that .