It is, everyone says, a fantastic year for mushrooms, so far. The problem is, I can't find any. All my favourite spots for chanterelles and ceps have been raided - the fungi have been there, it's obvious, but all that remains when I turn up is crime-scene evidence: trampled grass, discarded bits of overblown mushroom, sometimes the detritus of middle-class picnicking: a ciabatta crust, a salami rind, the cork of something very reasonable from Laithwaites. You weep.

This is, of course, the curse of foraging, which is now challenging golf as a pursuit. A thousand newspaper articles headlined “Season of Mellow Fruitfulness”, with shots of wind-blown toddlers wandering in Brora-wear through golden grasslands, have sent the British liberal middle class stampeding into the copses, Roger Phillips's mushroom book in hand. The craze is boosted by credit-crunch fears, of course: I doubt there's a decent fungus hollow now within 50 miles of a major urban centre that doesn't look like it has been ram-raided. And, as anyone with apple trees will tell you, you can't step into the garden without a cheery face popping over the wall to ask: “Any chance I could relieve you of those windfalls?”

I know it's a good chanterelle season because the price of them in my local deli in Edinburgh, Valvona & Crolla, is down to £36 a kilo. (It was an amazing £45 last year.) Obviously, I could never buy chanterelles in a shop: they would turn to bitter dust in my mouth. So I can only dream of those lovely golden trumpets wilting gracefully in the pan as I flash-fry them in butter and olive oil, just for a minute or so. I think I'll tear up some parsley and toss the chanterelles in tagliatelle. Oh God, how I miss them.

I succumbed to the lust last week in a smart Edinburgh restaurant, Café St Honoré. There was a seductive promise on the specials menu: “wild mushrooms and chanterelles on rye bread toast”. Imagine, if you can, the disappointment when what turned up was some grey slivers of chewy fungus with some little black button mushrooms adorning it. The waitress insisted they were chanterelles, but my neighbour at the next table agreed that her plate was like none she had ever seen or tasted. “I was trying to be charitable,” she said. “I thought maybe these were a Scottish variety.” I received a grudging half-apology from the manager when I rang the next morning, and a promise to “sort you out if you mention it next time you're in”. Which won't happen, because I won't be in Café St Honoré again. Obviously.

This sort of thing is infuriating (and if you come across any other cases, please do e-mail me with all the details). I'm involved in a debate with an Italian red-sauce restaurant whose “ravioli with porcini” was quite clearly ravioli with tinned button mushrooms sliced up and chucked on top. This matter is now resting with Edinburgh Council's trading standards complaints desk - when I say resting, I mean I haven't heard anything from them for months. But the fight against the mushroom meddlers will not stop.

And here's a message to all those foragers. Getting the kids in the car and driving to the Surrey Downs or the Lothian beech woods to tramp up and down fruitlessly looking for mushrooms that were picked two days ago by professional pickers selling direct to Paris is neither clever nor carbon-friendly. Try bicycling to Tesco instead and buying some field mushrooms marked “local”. Leave the foraging to, well, to me. Meanwhile, I'm going this weekend to this fantastic new spot that no one knows about. And no, I'm certainly not telling you.

If you must forage, I recommend Fi Houston and Xa Milne's excellent book, Seaweed and Eat It (Virgin Books). Mushroom-picking can go wrong - take a good guide and pick only those that you can positively identify.

alex.renton@thetimes.co.uk

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