Luck was total when mushroom consultant Malin Mobrandt, 49, made a unique find in a forest outside Uddevalla.
Under a fir tree, she found a Goliath musseron – a mushroom that shouldn’t have been there and that costs around SEK 10,000 per kilo.
– The feeling is hard to describe, but it’s like having a cardiac arrest when you find a species that normally wouldn’t grow where it grew, she says directly from the mushroom forest.
It was last Thursday, when Malin Mobrandt was going to hold an evening class for other mushroom enthusiasts in a forest north of Uddevalla, that she made the very unusual find. Something like Bohuslänningen reported on. Not far from where the group parked their cars, she aimed what would turn out to be a Goliath musseron.
– I don’t think my mushroom course students understood what it was that I had found and I wanted it confirmed by our current chairman of the National Association of Mushroom Consultants. Then I had it also confirmed by the former chairman, she says.
Japan’s national mushroom – costs SEK 10,000 per kilo
The goliath mushroom, also called Matsutake, is Japan’s national mushroom and one of the world’s most expensive mushrooms. It can be sold for SEK 10,000 a kilo – but a perfect specimen can be sold for even more.
In Sweden, honeysuckle grows above all on dry, sandy and open pine heaths in northern Sweden. Malin Mobrandt has previously picked a few in the forests around Skellefteå, but the fact that the species also evidently grows in Bohuslän and that she herself would get to pick a couple was something she hadn’t expected.
– In Bohuslän it is unusual, perhaps between five and ten finds have been made in previous years. This is not a new species, but it was for me because I found it outside Uddevalla, she says.
“Special in appearance”
Malin Mobrandt says that the mushroom has a special appearance, but without the knowledge she possesses, she would never have noticed it.
– It is very special in appearance, so had it not been for the fact that I had knowledge of it before, I would never have reacted to it. It has a hard slanted foot with a pointed base, but unlike, for example, chanterelles and Karl-Johan, it has roots. So it’s not just about lifting it up, you have to pull it off, quite frankly, she says.
– It also has a very special sweet-gooey scent. If you have once smelled the scent of a Goliath, you never forget it. The taste is also very special – you either like it or you hate it.
What do you think about it?
– I think it is very good.
Had to throw away his find
Unfortunately, Malin Mobrandt was forced to throw away her find when she discovered that it was not edible.
– I had it in the fridge over the weekend and then I was going to dry it on Sunday, but unfortunately it wasn’t in a condition that was ripe for drying so I had to throw it away. It was infested with caterpillars. Otherwise, I would have made a soup out of it based on a recipe that a colleague created, she says before it is time to return to the day’s mushroom hunting.
– It will be a fantastic mushroom year, she says.
Briefly about Goliath musseron
Goliath musseron is a fleshy and large mushroom with a strong and sweet smell and is most often found on dry and nutrient-poor soil in pine forests and on various types of glacial remains, such as ridges.
The hat is usually between 5–15 centimeters in diameter, but can be up to 30 centimeters wide.
Is one of the world’s most expensive mushrooms. In Japan, where the species is the country’s national mushroom, it can be sold for SEK 10,000 per kilo. A perfect specimen can be worth even more – such a mushroom is given, for example, as a gift between Japanese business leaders or mafia bosses.