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Book Reviews by Connie Bennett.

Book Review: The Mushroom Hunters

Random House

I have to tell you: I both loved and hated this book.  But it took me a while to figure out why.
As I read the first third of “The Mushroom Hunters,” by Seattle author Langdon Cook, I reveled in the mystery and wonder of old growth forests.   I enjoyed learning intriguing details about exotic mushrooms.  I could appreciate the allure of the quirky characters and the quasi-legal economy that provides freshly foraged food to restaurants, both locally and as far away as New York and Japan.  Cook’s vivid, passionate narrative non-fiction reminded me of everything I liked best about “The Orchid Thief,” plus the added interest of taking place in our own Pacific Northwest, in cities, parks, and along highways that we know.    The book provides a perfect showcase for Cook’s passions: gourmet food, mushrooms, and hangin’ out with the guys.  
Round about page eighty, however, I found myself really disliking “The Mushroom Hunters.”  It started seeming too long, too repetitive.  The celebrity chef fan-boy attitude grated.  The minutely catalogued details of specific mushroom varieties began to put me to sleep.  I disliked the marginal, clichéd roles assigned to women, and the dismissive attitude towards the Southeast Asian pickers.  I was disgusted by the entrepreneurial commercial mushroom hunter that switched to harvesting copper wire, since it paid better.  I was irritated at how dismissive this urban yuppie was of rural Oregon culture.  I kept asking myself, who is the audience he’s writing for?  
By the last third of the book, I suddenly realized that Cook wasn’t really writing for an audience, at least, not in the usual sense.  We, the readers, are instead being asked to witness his personal heroic journey, as he challenges himself to penetrate this mysterious subculture and fulfill his quest to harvest 100 pounds of mushrooms in a day.  Suddenly everything clicks into its symbolic place – from the patient Penelope-like wife waiting at home, to the ritual gathering of the “family” after the death of the gourmet chef Christina Choi which ends the book.  
Once I accepted the book on its own terms, I enjoyed it.   And as an added bonus, the detailed descriptions of attendees and menus of the Oregon Truffle Festival, held annually at the Eugene Hilton.   It’s as close as most of us “famously iconoclastic locals” will ever get to that festival.  
 

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