No ceps please — why Brits are missing out

is difficult to understand the reluctance of Brits to embrace the picking of wild mushrooms. Yes, it is a tricky business, with about 25 species ready to have you pushing up the daisies and 1,000 more happy to provide a day or two of action-packed regret. Despite these obvious drawbacks, however, our continental cousins have been picking wild mushrooms for millennia and consider it part of their culture. It is a thin argument, but perhaps the forgiving climate of Britain and paucity of invading armies has generally left the population with enough to eat without dangerous mycological experimentation. Certainly,