A forest hunt for Chhattisgarh’s delicious Pihiri mushrooms
The rare Pihiri mushrooms found amid the lush greenery of Chhattisgarh's Achanakmar Tiger Reserve serve as a lifeline for local villagers who harvest them for income while tackling challenges like wildlife threats.
The villagers living inside the Achanakmar Tiger Reserve in Chhattisgarh scout for pihiri – a delicious mushroom available for a short duration – inside the forest during the rainy season. Bhagwani Sakat was found selling both the baans pihiri as well as the long pihiri (referred to only as pihiri locally) near Bindawal village inside the reserve.
An adivasi woman from Barighat village of Achanakmar thoroughly washes the baans pihiri before cooking it for dinner for her family to consume the dish with rice.
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“While the long variety fetches about Rs 600 per kg during the peak season, the round one is priced at Rs 100 per kg. People consume these two mushrooms a lot as they get over by the end of the monsoon,” Sakat said.
In the months of July and August, these two types of mushrooms are easily spotted being bought and sold at multiple spots inside the vast Achanakmar reserve. These mushrooms are dried for storage since they are next available after a whole year.
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Both types of mushrooms – baans and long – are mostly dried in the sun so that they can be stored for a longer period of time. But these can also be consumed fresh after cooking with light spices.
Bishnu Baiga is happy to see that his precious mushroom has turned a nice shade of brown after drying in the sun. “I sometimes walk for three km to collect the mushrooms. We often get bad mosquito bites in the process,” he said.
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Adivasi women wait to sell their pihiri to trader Ghanaram Rathore who had come to buy the mushrooms from a nearby city. “I bargained to pay Rs 50 per kg for the baans pihiri. It is enjoyed in cities too,” he said. He had already collected four kg on that particular morning and was on the lookout for more.
The pihiri being weighed before being sold to traders like Rathore who come from the city to buy the seasonal mushroom.
The long pihiri waiting to be cooked. Cleaning and cutting it takes a lot of time but cooking it is relatively easy.
Pihiri being cooked on a traditional chulha (stove). It tastes great when consumed with rice and that is how most people eat it.
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The lead image at the top shows baans pihiri and long pihiri being sold at a local market. Text and photographs by Deepanwita Gita Niyogi, a journalist based in New Delhi.