Not just a paradise for mushroomers, the rich forests of Central Europe also provide ample amounts of borůvky (blueberries), ostružiny (blackberries), maliny (raspberries) and jahody (strawberries).

Gathering them is about as difficult as going for a leisurely walk and keeping your eyes open, though wild strawberries can be very wary prey.

"You find them in the same place as blueberries, but forest strawberries are more sensitive and thus more rare," says Petr Pěkný, an avid berry picker. He usually finds both varieties inside pine forests. "Raspberries, on the other hand, grow on the edges of forests, not in forests themselves." He notes that although this year's berry season in the lowlands is coming to an end, mountain forests will provide berries until August.

In fact, the great abundance of forest fruit in the region has caused a glut on the market, making the domestic version easier to find.

"We no longer do blueberries — the price isn't worthwhile anymore. We last bought blueberries three years ago when we used to pay people 45–50 Kč per kilogram," says Pavel Bogner, who buys forest products, mostly mushrooms, for Magu Bohemia. "Now blueberries from Poland are as little as 30 Kč ($1.20) and people here aren't willing to sell them for that little. They might be selling them by the roadside themselves."

The forest and the side of the road aren't the only places to find berries. Many pickers also sell freshly gathered berries at busy metro stations and outdoor markets in the city center.

But nothing beats taking a hike through the woods and emerging at the end with your own bucket of fresh fruit. To avoid mosquitoes, Pěkný recommends starting out early in the morning.

The accompanying recipe is ideally suited for strawberries, though blueberries or a mix of forest fruits could also work quite well. Nor do the berries need to be wild. But the effort of gathering them yourself will make them taste that much better.

A word of warning: Berries often grow in the same environment as wild mushrooms. One friend recounted a camping trip where 20 friends cooked a batch of pancakes with jam made from wild strawberries. After a few hours, things started getting very strange. One young woman —who happened to be allergic to strawberries — couldn't figure out why everyone else was rapidly becoming delirious. Returning to the spot where the group had gathered their berries, she found a field covered with psilocybes, a genus that includes many types of psychedelic mushrooms.