May 2025 General Meeting - Mai Løvaas "Female Mushroom Hunters of Zambia: Food, Medicine and Livelihoods"

The evening will start at 6:30 pm for those who would like to socialize, snack on Bob Wynn's fantastic spread and chat with fellow mycophiles before the main meeting. Business and announcements will start at 7:00 pm.

This month we will be holding elections for some open minister jobs. Up for election are the following positions and tentative candidates:

Minister of Membership:  Richard Rammer
Co-Minister of Propaganda:   Suhani Saraswat    
Minister of Education : ?????

Nominations from the floor are welcome but nominees should be present to provide their assent to be nominated for a position. You must be a dues paying FFSC member to vote or run for office. Our bylaws are currently being revised, but see 2016 Bylaws for description of these ministers' duties.

After the business part of the meeting, Mai Løvaas will present a talk on:

Female Mushroom Hunters of Zambia: Food, Medicine and Livelihoods

Zambia, a country in sub-tropical southeastern Africa, experiences a burst of fungal abundance during the rainy season when the ectomycorrhizal miombo forests fill with mushrooms. Zambia is a mycophilic culture, where mushrooms are loved and celebrated. The forests yield a variety of edible mushrooms such as chanterelles, Russulas, and Lactarius species, as well as the highly prized Termitomyces titanicus, the world’s largest edible mushroom. For many communities, mushrooms are a crucial seasonal food source. Mothers, grandmothers, and aunties teach children from an early age how to forage and identify mushrooms safely, using songs, stories, and hands-on experience to pass down this essential knowledge. For women, mushroom gathering also becomes a source of income.  This talk is based on Mai Løvaas’ MSc Global Health thesis from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology titled Female Mushroom Hunters in Zambian Miombo Woodlands: Food, Medicine, Livelihoods, and Environmental Change.

Mai Løvaas was born and raised in Norway and has lived in California for many years. She began studying plants and mushrooms in 2012 while attending the Berkeley Herbal Center, later incorporating her passion for fungi into her MSc in Global Health at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. Through The Norwegian Association for Mycology and Foraging, Mai became a certified mushroom identification expert. During the fall season, she can often be found at mushroom identification stations across Norway, helping foragers distinguish between edible and poisonous species.