Wild food plants and fungi used by Ukrainians in the western part of the Maramureş region in Romania

Łukasz Łuczaj,Tomasz Kosiek,Marcin Pietras,Kinga Stawarczyk,Anna Kujawa

doi:10.5586/asbp.2015.029

Łukasz Łuczaj, Tomasz Kosiek + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5586/asbp.2015.029

Copy DOI

Abstract

Wild food and fungi use in the countryside has always been an important part of human-nature relationships. Due to social changes in most rural areas of Europe this part of traditional ecological knowledge is shrinking. The aim of our study was to record the use of wild foods and plants among the Ukrainian (Carpatho-Rusyns) minority in the western part of Romanian Maramureş. We carried out 64 interviews in two villages. Voucher specimens were collected and DNA barcoding was used to identify most fungi taxa. We recorded the use of 44 taxa of plants altogether (including 8 taxa used only for herbal teas) and 24 taxa of fungi. On average 7.7 species of plants and 9.7 species of fungi were listed per interview. Edible fungi are thus an important part of local cuisine and they are eagerly gathered by everyone. The use of a few woodland bracket fungi is worth pointing out. No signs of degeneration of this knowledge were observed. Wild fruits are less collected now and wild greens are rarely collected nowadays. This pattern is typical of many places in Central Europe.

Highlights

South-Eastern Europe is, due to a combination of historical, political and biological factors, a hotspot of biocultural diversity in Europe [1]
The aim of our study was to record the use of wild foods and plants among the Ukrainian (Carpatho-Rusyns) minority in the western part of Romanian Maramureş
Over 60% of all Romanian Ukrainians live in Maramureş County [34,35], where they constitute 6.8% of the population. This group of Ukrainians mainly inhabits an area directly adjacent to the Ukrainian border. They found themselves divided between two countries (Romania and Czechoslovakia) after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in which Maramureş was a Hungarian administrative region [36]

Summary

Introduction

South-Eastern Europe is, due to a combination of historical, political and biological factors, a hotspot of biocultural diversity in Europe [1]. This applies to Romania, a country with sizable ethnic minorities and a well-preserved rural culture [2,3]. In the past few years, modern ethnobotanical studies have been carried out in Romania They were focused on ethnic minorities such as Hungarians [7,8,9,10,11], Poles [12,13], Italians [14] and Tartars [15]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion