My Kingdom For A Mushroom - Burn Down the Forest!
Burn It All for the Mushrooms: The Smoky Quest for Thailand's Truffles Ah, Chiang Mai, land of misty mountains, tranquil temples, and a three-month period every year when you can’t see any of it because the air turns into a smoky apocalypse. Why? Sure, some of it’s due to large-scale agriculture and cross-border burning, but a surprising amount of haze comes from a much humbler source: villagers setting the forest on fire to hunt for mushrooms. Not just any mushrooms, but the illustrious het thob (เห็ดถอบ), also known as earthstar mushrooms or Astraeus hygrometricus . These round, truffle-like fungi are delicious, elusive, and most importantly, they thrive in recently burned forest soil. So, come dry season, locals grab their lighters and head to the hills to light things up, unfortunately literally. To be fair, this isn't just chaos for chaos’ sake. It’s tradition, it's seasonal income, it's dinner. These mushrooms fetch high prices at the market and can mean serious...