I think the more important question is: have people really run out of interesting flavors at their local stores and restaurants, that they are so obsessed with eating things they find growing on the ground?

I’ll never understand mushroom culture.

Some mushrooms like chanterelles can't be reliably farmed, and are quite tasty! I love being able to spend a day hiking and coming back with a meal.

Some reasons to forage (applies to berries, nuts, fruits, not just mushrooms):

* Foraging is very satisfying to do

* Foraging allows you to participate in your cultural practices (although sadly many people in the US are long-cut off from such cultural knowledge)

* You can get fresher food foraging

* There absolutely are interesting varieties that aren't sold because they are hard to farm/transport/store etc.

* Foraged food is free

You can't really understand until you've tasted choice mushrooms, the only one of which is findable in stores is the bolete, and even that's usually dry and tells terrible quality.

I used to go in the forest and find maybe 5 types of really tasty mushrooms, come back with enough for the whole family. Add some cheese and some onions and it's Michelin star in the mountains.

There is a great variety of mushrooms with distinct characteristics, many of which are only found in the wild. Even the ones sold at restaurants are often sourced from foragers. It's a skill to find and identify them and for many it's an exciting hobby.

I agree. Foraging out in the beautiful woods connecting to nature by eating what you picked is irrational.

Taste aside, foraging in the woods--whether for mushrooms, berries or herbs--unlocks some atavistic response inside me. It feels deeply true to my nature as an animal, and is very rewarding in a way that surprised me when I first did it.

I’ve been at a locals’ restaurant in Italy where the chef had sourced some truffles from a nearby wood. They were better than anything he could have got from a store

Same as fishing or hunting, or foraging blueberry or blackberries while hiking, there's some primal reward in gathering your own food (occasionally, that is).

Are you this actively shitty towards all hobbies you don't also enjoy?

People have been foraging for mushrooms for literally thousands of years, but mushroom cultivation is pretty recent, and the overwhelming majority of edible species have not yet been reliably cultivated.

Are you ignorant of where those interesting flavors come from (indeed, are discovered)?

This has strong "why should we care about farms? People get everything they need from the store" vibes.

I had a friend that was quite passionate about foraging for mushrooms while we were in high school. He eventually went on to receive a PhD. in mycology. My old friend as well as everyone else I knew that liked to forage mushrooms were... uh... not looking for "flavorful" mushrooms to say the least.