Take Your Mushrooms to the Pharmacy — Epoche A2
Dear Anna, Last Sunday my neighbour Paul took me mushroom hunting in the woods above the village. It had rained all week here in the Auvergne, and the two baskets were full after three hours. But nothing went into the pan that evening. On Monday morning Paul carried both baskets to the pharmacy in town. That is normal in France: pharmacists study mushrooms as part of their training, and in autumn people bring in their baskets to be checked. The check costs nothing. The pharmacist spread everything out on the counter. Most mushrooms she pushed to the good side quickly. Then she stopped, and she took out four. They looked almost exactly like the good yellow ones — same size, same colour on top. She turned one over and showed the underside, twice, slowly. The difference was there, small but clear. "These can put an adult in hospital," she said, and dropped them in her bin. I looked at the two groups on the counter for a long time, Anna. I could not see the line between them. She could. The good ones went into an omelette on Monday evening. Next autumn Paul wants to teach me the differences — and then he will still go to the pharmacy first, he says. Love, Marie