It’s mushroom season in the Czech Republic. We haven’t been out yet, maybe tomorrow, but I have seen many people on the Metros and the Trams, coming back from a day in the woods with big wicker baskets filled with big, fat, edible fungi.
I’m not sure, but it seems to me they are particularly large this year and I have a theory about that: Fukushima.
When Černobyl happened, in 1986, long before I even dreamed of coming to what was then Czechoslovakia (I was living on a commune in Wales at the time. We raised goats, made cheese and candles, smoked excessive amounts of hashish, and argued with each other constantly – first world problems) we followed the news with great apprehension, but people here didn’t know about it at all.
Things like that did not get reported. Still, people noticed a couple of things that year, I have heard from many: very large strawberries and very large mushrooms. Both of which, since they had no reason to assume they were caused by nuclear radiation, people ate with relish and abandon.
There was no massive outbreak of birth defects, but nobody turned into superheroes either.
Of course, my theory could be entirely off. It seems to me the mushrooms are particularly large this year, but that could just be my imagination. Even if it is a bumper crop, the extremely hot summer and plenty of recent rain might be just as responsible. Fukushima is a lot further away than Černobyl, and unless I hear of giant mushrooms sprouting in Korea or California, then I’m probably just whistling in the dark.
And I’m certainly not making an argument for nuclear energy. It’s just something I thought of today so figured I’d mention it.
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