Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Funnily enough, John Marco Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East came up recently in a conversation between a few oldies gathered round a kitchen table in Wales. It’s a book you’re probably acquainted with but if not it’s worth a read. It askes the fundamental question whether Jesus was a mushroom or not. I’m inclined to think he was, but one unsubstantiated theory (or state of mind) is as good or as bad as the next so take your choice.

On a more practical level I love mushrooms – from the first of the season’s £1,000 a-piece matsutake to those slimy little shimeji fellas. Best one ever though was a purple bozutake (monk mushroom) incomparable in flavour and probably now known to only a handful of aging Japanese. We don’t know about, or use, mushrooms nearly enough. Ditto seaweed :-)