The matsutake that grows around the Bay Area is a little different from the one in Japan, but it's still really tasty. So we started with porcini, and then we started seeing other mushrooms, like chanterelles and matsutake. So when you find one, it's just like, wow. In the beginning, we were mostly looking for porcini mushrooms, which are considered 'king mushrooms.' They're really satisfying because they grow really big-they can be humongous.

Shinya holds a porcini while wearing fingerless mitts she knit herself. Photo courtesy of Sayuri Shinya. What kind of mushroom did you find on that first trip? And once you get to know where they grow and you start marking the map-like I have a GPS app on my phone-and you start tagging the locations, you create your own treasure map that you can go back to year after year. You always remember the first mushroom that you found yourself. So we kept going until we finally hit the jackpot, and that moment was so addicting.

And you don't know, Is it the place or the timing? What am I doing wrong? You just have to keep going and just put time into it. You drive all the way out there, it's about a two-hour drive, you go there, you're walking all day, and you don't find a single mushroom. So we went up there, and the first couple times we got-they call it 'getting skunked,' which means you don't find anything. There's a state park up north from where I live in Sonoma County called Salt Point State Park, and it's one of only three or four state parks in the Bay Area that allow foraging. I talked with her by video about falling in love with foraging, tips for beginners, and her comfort foods.ĭo you remember your first foraging trip? Working indoors all day, she loves spending time outside and using her creativity to cook, knit, and cross-stitch (recently a porcini-patterned wall hanging). Shinya, who moved to California from Tokyo at the age of 12, works as a chemist in a water treatment lab. In the mushroom off-season, they forage for other plants, like huckleberries and loquats. Though she and her husband occasionally sell mushrooms to restaurants when they have a surplus, they mostly give them to family and friends or cook them for themselves. The mushrooms are mostly frilly chanterelles and stocky porcini, with the odd flared pig’s ear and poisonous, glowing jack o’lantern (not for eating but for steeping to make dye). Along with colorwork hats and cabled sweaters, she has also posted homemade shiratama and Japanese pudding, farmer’s market stone fruit hauls, lichen harvested for fiber-dyeing, and mushrooms. I met Shinya on Instagram, where we both post photos of our knitting projects. Shinya wearing one of her handknit hats (the pattern is Peerie Flooers by Kate Davies). Photo courtesy of Sayuri Shinya.

Mushroom wars mushroom hunters