Mushroom Foraging Is So Popular in Minnesota, the State Plans a Crackdown

ST. CROIX STATE PARK, Minn.—Peter Martignacco remembers a magical day after a big rain brought out an abundance of mushrooms in a state park an hour from his home outside Minneapolis. 

He crammed his backpack and a 3-gallon basket—twice—with a total of about 20 pounds of plump porcini mushrooms. When Martignacco, president of the 124-year-old Minnesota Mycological Society, went back a few days later to look for more, “I kind of cried a little,” he said. “There were a whole bunch there, but they were all mushy and consumed by insects and stuff like that.”

Mushroom hunters could be crying a lot more if the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources carries out plans to stem the pastime—with a limit on mushroom picking in state parks that could be as low as one gallon per person a day.  

“It’s like saying you can take half a trout, or a cup of berries,” said Alan Bergo, 38, a mushroom hunter and author who writes under the name the Forager Chef.

State officials say foraging has mushroomed in popularity in recent years and got an added push during the pandemic, when people were clamoring for open-air activities. Now, they fear, things could be getting out of hand.

“There have been situations where we’ve had a large number of people come in—sometimes 80 people at once—to go gathering,” said Ann Pierce, director of parks and trails for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “You’re going to have trampling, you’re going to have overcollection—a variety of different things.”

Pierce plans to meet with Martignacco’s group next month as the agency works to put out a new rule next year that would also limit berry picking. Under Minnesota law, state parks are intended to “preserve, perpetuate and interpret” natural resources and can accommodate recreational activities as long as they don’t materially disturb those features, she said. It’s already illegal to sell mushrooms or berries collected in Minnesota’s 75 state parks and recreation areas.

Martignacco, a 66-year-old consultant for a medical-device maker, says the mushroom community has largely been kept in the dark about the state’s plans and only got a meeting with officials after asking for it. He says a 1-pound limit would ruin those few glorious days like the one with the porcini two years ago when he was at the right spot at just the right time. He wistfully recounts cooking up the porcini with shallots, butter, cream and chives, sharing some with his parents and drying the rest.   

And even on a less-epic day, a 1-pound limit essentially would make it not worth driving hours round-trip to a state park to bag what amounts to a couple of side dishes’ worth of fungi after cooking, said Martignacco. “They are functionally saying we don’t want you here.”

The dust-up in the deep woods can quickly turn into a rumination over the nature of humankind, our relationship with nature—and the nature of mushrooms themselves.

The officials contemplating a crackdown are “well-meaning people who view the park lands as sacred and envision the worst of their fellow man,” said Baylen Linnekin, a lawyer who often writes about food laws. “They tend to err on the side of preservation over the use and enjoyment of the public, and I think those things—when it comes to foraging—largely aren’t at odds.”

Foraging mushrooms doesn’t actually deplete their supply long term, he said. The mushrooms we see are the fruit of an organism that lives underground, and just like other fruits, exist to help the organism survive. “Most of those fruits want to be picked—a berry wants a bird to eat it, so that it can poop out its seed in some other place and that will help that plant propagate,” Linnekin said.

Tim Clemens, 34, a former president of the mycological society who now teaches classes on gathering wild foods near the Twin Cities, said most people tend to view the woods as an inanimate, green backdrop for hiking or camping. “The foragers see the forest for the trees—that opens the possibility of a deeper connection,” he said.

Still, Danielle Schmitz, 45, a longtime forager from White Bear Lake, Minn., thinks it’s time to put some limits on ravaging mushroom pickers after finding more beer cans and other litter in the woods. “There’s a lot of people that will harvest anything they see, take it home with them to find out if it’s even edible, and then try to sell it,” she said. “They’re decimating the whole area to make a buck.” 

On a recent day, Martignacco, Bergo and nine other members of the mycological society set off to hunt mushrooms at one of their favorite spots deep in St. Croix State Park. They forged a stream, clambered over fallen trees, picked their way through waist-high ferns and fought off mosquitoes over several hours.

About an hour into the foray, Cheré Suzette Bergeron, a 36-year-old herbalist, holistic nurse and educator-in-training for the group, got down on all fours to carefully pick a few chanterelle mushrooms amid lush ferns and grasses. Bergeron said the DNR rules won’t diminish such enjoyment, and noted: “It’s more spiritual for me.”

A few minutes later, Bergo, the Foraging Chef, called out to a reporter after making one of the best finds of the day. “Look what you just walked past,” he said, pointing to a big flush of orange and yellow chicken of the woods mushrooms growing on a moss-covered log. He picked the firm flesh and used a pocketknife to carve away a few bug-infested bits. He later cooked it up in a pan with grapeseed oil and salt over a camp stove before garnishing it with fresh thyme sprigs.

Still, the group collectively brought in less than a gallon of mushrooms amid dry conditions this summer. “That’s how it goes,” Bergo said. “The small harvests make the big ones worthwhile—and that’s what keeps you going out.”

Write to Joe Barrett at [email protected]