A dear friend just returned from an adventure in Iceland, that magical land of myths and legends, bringing home with her Brian Pilkington's charming book, Icelandic Trolls, which she kindly lent us. We must confess that we were totally unaware of the connection between trolls and mushrooms until we discovered the following information:
Troll caves are warm, dark, and often humid, and are therefore the perfect environment for the cultivation of mushrooms. Trolls have nurtured and harvested mushrooms for as long as they can remember (which is quite a bit). Over the centuries, they've managed to increase the size of the mushrooms considerably, as well as controlling their texture and strengthening their pungent fungal flavours. The largest varieties of mushrooms now have thick, tough skins that are as useful and hard wearing as leather.
These actually ARE Icelandic mushrooms (boletes, no less), but
we're pretty sure the trolls had nothing to do with these particular examples.
We had the good fortune to visit Iceland several years ago, but encountered only boletes, such as shown in the photograph above.
Thanks to Icelandic Trolls, we're now quite chagrined to know that we should have spent time foraging for mushrooms in Icelandic troll caves rather than in Icelandic forests!