Cooking Club: Mushroom Hunt & Hike

Mushroom Hunt & Hike
Genjiyama Park, Kamakura
Mushroom hunting, mushrooming, mushroom picking, and similar terms describe the activity of gathering mushrooms in the wild, typically for eating. This is popular in most of Europe, including the Nordic, Baltic, and Slavic countries and the Mediterranean Basin, as well as in Japan.キノコ（茸、菌、木野子）とは、菌類のうちで比較的大型の子実体を形成するもの、あるいはその子実体そのものをいう。ここでいう「大型」に明確な基準があるわけではないが、肉眼で存在がはっきり確認できるくらいの大きさのものをキノコという場合が多い。いずれにせよ「キノコ」という語は学術用語というよりは日常語であって、あまり厳格な定義を求めるべきものではない。そのため「キノコ」と片仮名書きするより「きのこ」と平仮名書きする方がふさわしいとする意見も専門家の間では根強い。

Around Autumn every year some of the cooking club members and I go on a hiking tour of Kamakura, Japan. Autumn is also the best time to hunt for seasonal mushrooms in Japan, so I combined the best of both worlds. A hike around the hills surrounding scenic Kamakura and getting down and dirty with some pesky hidden mushrooms.
This is a recap of the following years I accounted for(the weather forced us to cancel several trips) I'll include recipes of mushroom dishes next time...

October 2002 Kita Kamakura Station Jochiji Temple
We started out from Kita Kamakura Station and gathered at the mouth of the Genjiyama Hiking trail behind Jochiji Temple. The Kinpōzan Jōchi-ji (金宝山浄智寺?) is a Buddhist Zen temple in Kita-Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It belongs to the Engaku-ji school of the Rinzai sect and is ranked fourth among Kamakura's Five Mountains. The main objects of worship are the three statues of Shaka, Miroku and Amida Nyorai visible inside the main hall.

A fairly large group of members showed up and we walked up to the Genjiyama Temple(about a 40 minutes climb) It was very sunny and the path was dry. I pointed out a few specimens of tree mushrooms but the ground was rather dry and the conditions were not ideal for mushrooms.
Atop the park we sat down to have a picnic and rest our feet. There were many stray cats to pick up out scraps and entertain us...but no mushrooms in sight!
Afterwards we visited a shrine at the park and made our way down to a Japanese Tea House to enjoy Kuzu-mochi and tea in the garden.October 2003 Zeniarai Benzaiten
The following year we made a trip to the unique 'money washing' temple just past Genjiyama Park called Zeniarai Benzaiten.
Popularly known simply as Zeniarai Benten, Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Shrine (銭洗弁財天宇賀福神社, Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Jinja?) is the second most popular spot in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture after Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū even though a visit means a 20-minute walk from Kamakura station. This beautiful 800-year-old shrine is unusual for a number of reasons, the first being the fact it's completely surrounded by high rock walls. Completely invisible from the outside, it can be reached only thorough a tunnel. Because of the irregular ground it was built on, its various buildings stand at different heights and are connected by stairways. What makes it unique, and is also probably the main reason why over 900,000 people a year come here, is that the water of the spring inside Zeniarai Benzaiten's cave is supposed to have the power to multiply the money it comes in contact with. Many people come here specifically to dip their yen in the spring, probably more for fun than greed. Inside the cave where the spring is baskets and ladles are available expressly for that purpose. This unique tradition of coming to wash your coins began in 1257 when Hōjō Tokiyori came here and washed his coins with the spring's water, expressing the hope that they may be doubled. People heard the story, and the tradition was born
October 2006 Daibutsu The Great Buddha
I was busy doing other things for several years before I could arrange another hike. Some friends from Tokyo came to Kamakura so a must-see for them was the Great Buddha. We took the back hiking course through Genjiyama park and across to Hase City. Actually a much steeper climb than I had imagined.

Kōtoku-in (高徳院?) is a Buddhist temple of the Jōdo shū sect in the city of Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
The temple is renowned for the Great Buddha (大仏, daibutsu?), a monumental outdoor bronze statue of Amida Buddha which is one of the most famous icons of Japan. The statue stands at 13.35 meters high and weighs approximately 93 tons.
The statue probably dates from 1252, in the Kamakura period, when temple records report the construction of a bronze statue. However, it is unclear whether that is the present statue. The statue was built inside a wooden temple, but that building washed away in the tsunami of September 20th, 1498 during the Muromachi period. The statue remains.
The statue is referred to as "The Buddha at Kamakura" in several verses that preface the initial chapters of the novel Kim by Rudyard Kipling (1901). The verses were taken from the poem of the same name the writer wrote after visiting Kamakura in 1892