Unlike my fellow countryman Antonio Carluccio of the Neal Street Restaurant I have no desire to instil into everyone a passion for mushrooms from the wild. I'll be honest; it pleases me enormously that when I go out to gather mushrooms there is no competition at all. Even by the sides of roads and pathways they sit unmolested, waiting only for my eager fingers.
Why this should be the case in Ireland I'm not sure. Elsewhere in Europe if you're not out looking for mushrooms at five in the morning other eager foragers will have got there before you, leaving a fungal desert. Here a gentle afternoon stroll will fill a basket with virtually no effort.

There is no doubt that mushrooms are curious creatures. They are not plants - they have no chlorophyll. They're closer to the animal than the vegetable kingdom. When you spot one in a field what you are seeing is the fruit of the fungus: the thing itself might cover two acres. To some extent they are like fruits on a fruit tree. Under the ground thin strands like silk, called mycelium, form large lattice-work grids that are in fact the fungus. What we call mushrooms, the fruiting bodies, grow at the intersections of two different mycelia; one male, one female. Beneath the soft green pasture, mushrooms are mating.

Maybe it's their bizarre way of growing up overnight that makes people wary. There's a definite mystique to them in the folk memory. Names like fairy rings, toadstools and witches' caps are all rooted in the legends and myths of sorcery. Mushroom cults are as old as civilisation and span virtually all cultures - the Eleusinian mysteries of the Minoans, the Soma of the Rig Veda, the Fly Agaric of the Norsemen. The biblical scholar John Allegro has suggested that the Jacob and Esau story is in fact a mushroom allegory. From Siberian Shamans to Amazonian Indian rituals, mushrooms have paved the way to the Gods. Throughout the millennia they have been revered and worshipped: the first Indo-European settlers of the Caucasus carved mushrooms from green stone. Before the advent of Christianity the major mystery cults appear to have been based on mushrooms. It's not a great theory, but it's possible that the early Christian anathemas against these mushroom cults have left us our legacy of suspicion.

Whatever mythological baggage mushrooms may carry, from simple field mushrooms to truffles they are a culinary delight. Once you've tasted parasols fresh from a field, little plastic trays of buttons lose all allure. Perhaps you've already been tempted to try the cultivated oyster or shitake mushrooms, and if so you'll have discovered that mushrooms vary in flavour just like different vegetables do. Dietetically many varieties contain useful trace elements and vitamins, but their principal contribution to our diet is flavour and texture.

The main mushroom season is upon us again, and once more I'm roaming the fields and forests with my eyes firmly on the ground. Last week's heavy rains soaked a much warmer soil than usual, and the result has been a flush of fungi the like of which I've never seen. Fields where in previous years I've picked a kilo or two have produced nine or ten. The glut is glorious. The ceps or penny buns can be dried and kept for later in the year when the lean times come, others can be cooked and frozen or pickled and stored, covered in olive oil, in air-tight jars.

Since I like to think of myself as a serious mushroom gatherer, I'll do what all serious gatherers do; I'll tell you what you can pick, but not where to find them - I guard the secrets of my special plots jealously. The secrecy is contagious; my wife knows a spot where chanterelles grow, but she's never taken me there.

So down to specifics. There are literally thousands of species of mushrooms, some good to eat, some poisonous. But there is no need to learn them all; learn to recognise the half-dozen or so that are common and good, and the few poisonous ones.

Common and edible mushrooms can be found in fields and in forests. Open grass-land mushrooms include field mushrooms and parasols which are good fried in butter or olive oil, shaggy ink-caps which are good for soups, and giant puff-balls which can be sliced like steak and fried.

In forests and at their edges there are the boletes and chanterelles. Chanterelles are apricot in colour and are very good. I put them under the grill with a little butter and black pepper. They have been known to cause indigestion, but that's because they're so good that people eat far too many at a time. Honey Fungus is common in woods, growing parasitically on dead wood in huge clusters. If you find one, you'll find hundreds. These I pickle as they keep well. Symbiotic with deciduous trees are the boletes. This is the species to which the cep or penny bun belongs, without a doubt the most gastronomically prized mushroom that grows in Ireland. The boletes, which include the species boletus and suillus are easy to spot. Unlike most mushrooms they have no gills on the underside of the cap, but tiny tubes which give the appearance of sponge. I picked a cep last week which weighed just under a pound. They dry easily and well, so gluts can be stored for later.

There is something atavistically pleasing about gathering your own food. Not only do you get a walk though through autumnal, russet-leafed woods, but you get supper as well. This last week of warm days and moist ground has made mushroom hunting a real pleasure, not just the walk, but also for the vast haul of booty.

I won't bore you with details, but there really are no rules for deciding if a mushroom is safe to eat. All the old wives' tales that I've heard have serious flaws. The best advice is to ignore them all. The only certain way is to learn the edible mushrooms from an expert or a book. A simple solution for avoiding the poisonous, as opposed to indigestion-causing mushrooms, is to learn what the amanitas look like. All the really poisonous mushrooms belong to this species. They grow out of an eggshell-like base, and have a little skirt around the stem. If these two things are present, then it's an amanita. Avoid them and you'll never be poisoned, although you'll miss out on one amanita that is good to eat. But above all, never eat a mushroom you haven't accurately identified.