In France, aficionados blow out on la trompette de la mort (death's trumpet) with gusto. Its funereal, horn-shaped appearance wins the French first prize for metaphor. Cornucopia, the English name, sounds more appetising, but few English speakers would be seen dead eating it - doubtless fearing just that. In any case, as Gertrude Stein said of wild asparagus: "You must have an eye for it."
It is, of course, just one specimen of that curious race, the wild mushroom. Appropriately, la trompette appears in October to herald the end of the year, especially the mushrooming year.
But you needn't wait until the eve of the 21st century to gather mushrooms. All over France their spores set knowing noses twitching and feet itching frantically in every season except winter.
In the Pyrenees after a downpour, gourmets hold their breaths and hope no tramontane will blow. One week later they don their oldest duds, pack baskets with picnic goodies that would send Mr Mole (from The Wind in the Willows) swooning, and set off.
If you are visiting the Eastern Pyrenees, or simply passing through, but would like to try your hand at mushrooming, don't bother asking where to go. The occasional, saintly soul might give you vague directions, but nothing more. You might as well ask Fred C. Dobbs to share his goldmine, or Jeffrey Archer to give his royalties to charity. After all, cepes can sell for between 100 and 250 francs a kilo.
So just emulate Bogart in another role as private eye Philip Marlowe, drive east on the departmentale 115, turn and head towards any mountain village between Ceret and Prats de Mollo. Look for cars with number plates ending in 66 (Pyrenees Orientales) parked in the middle of nowhere. Park yours at a discreet distance. Comb the woods until you hear ecstatic voices in the undergrowth, and pray that you haven't stumbled upon a couple who have found l'amour instead of l'amanite des cesars (l'oronge, or caesar's mushroom).
June and July are the prime time - in a good season - to find the first oronges, cepes (boletus) and girolles (chanterelles). However, for the zealot the year starts at the end of March. Philippe Riveil, a Catalan dentist with a Rabelaisian appetite for life, has already made two sorties in search of morilles (morels).
"I've never yet found one," he says, adding in a tone of reverence normally reserved for the quest for the Holy Grail. "But I think this is my year."
It's easy to understand why the morel, a mushroom that is found only in April and May, has become an obsession with him. Its conical bonnet, crinkled and convoluted like a petrified worm-eaten beehive wig, makes it one of the oddest of the odd. It is also one of the most mouth-watering and must be one of the shyest, for Philippe is no slouch when it comes to the hunt. If there are mushrooms in the hills between Ceret and Corsavy, he's sure to amass a kilo or 10.
He spreads a wider net than some, and includes, for example, coulemelles (parasol mushrooms) amongst those he likes to cook. His wife, Florence, on the other hand, won't eat them. Their off-white caps, anything up to 30 centimetres and more in diameter and covered in peeling brown scales, look too close to something from the Brothers Grimm. She prefers the Obelix-like dependability of the excellent Cepe de Bordeaux and sounds quite transported when she speaks of caesar's mushroom in a salad.
Nevertheless, parasols are a delicious addition to mushroom cuisine. Philippe occasionally serves them a a la hamburger.
You discard the stems of two parasol mushrooms of similar size and trim off the gills. Line a casserole dish with butter. Place one cap upside down in the dish and cover it with layers of mozzarella and finely sliced Parma or Bayonne ham. Cover with the second cap. Bake in a moderate oven until everything is nicely browned, then serve and savour a mycelium McDonald's.
Once you have feasted your senses on these varied fruits of field and forest, you are bound to get the bug. The aroma of mushrooms both in their habitat and in the pan is richly evocative.
THE sight of a dazzling fly agaric lurking in a thicket conjures up the world of fairytales and fantasy. But don't even think about eating it unless you want to find out just what was happening to James Fox in Nick Roeg's Performance. After all, gleaming beneath another bush is a richer prize: the glory and flavour of that ancient Roman favourite, caesar's mushroom, defying superlatives.
In Ireland, the nearest comparable experience to all this for most people - apart from a small band of mycolimaniacs - is blackberrying, which Seamus Heaney's poem captures so brilliantly. But blackberries are a late summer crop available, as they say, until the devil spits on them. The fruit is virtually guaranteed, and, diabolic expectoration notwithstanding, there is no danger in eating it. Some malignant fungi, on the other hand, have a nasty habit of imitating their amiable, edible relatives - the young flyageric, for example, is sometimes called in French fausse oronge.
"Ah, but that's part of it," says Philippe. "Knowing that you might be handling something dangerous. It keeps you on your toes."
It certainly divides the world into those who will take the negligible risk and those who regard it as a culinary heresy, a cuisine fit only for lemmings. Families divide on the question.
My mother-in-law, Gisele Rimbert, acquired her passion for wild mushrooms from her husband, Marcel. But her sister, Josette, recoils from them in horror. And when Gisele's oldest daughter, Josiane, was first offered cepes at the age of 14, she asked for hers to be set aside.
"I'll wait," she explained. "If you're all alive tomorrow, I'll have mine."
Fortunately, statistics show that fears are exaggerated. Even if they were not, how could anyone resist an entree of cepes, chanterelles, pied bleus and russules, fried in butter with garlic and parsley? As for that main course, rabbit a a la Rimbert, simply but memorably cooked with garlic, onions, tomatoes, thyme and the quintessential ingredient, dried cepes - it could put weight-watching permanently out of business.
In fact, most people who gather wild mushrooms are prudent. They compare notes, surround themselves with expert, beautifully illustrated tomes which they enjoy poring over almost as much as they love the chase itself. And if they still have doubts, they consult the local chemist.
So make friends with a true lover of mushrooms such as Philippe Riveil and he will be delighted to share his knowledge with you. And, as he leafs through his books to show you a picture of polyporus fomentarius, a fungus which compensates for its inedibility by being an excellent firelighter, he may well ask you in a dreamy voice:
"Are you free on Sunday? We can have another go at finding morels."
And if there are none, there may soon be cepes, chanterelles, caesars, milkcaps, parasols and finally trumpets to end the year.