If you’ve got a knack for plucking up elusive, edible, undomesticated fungi, Chez Panisse pays up to $12/pound for chanterelles and $25/pound for porcinis. Many mushroom hunters are secretive about their fruitful foraging grounds, not only because they fear competition but because, as David Campbell, president of the Mycological Society of San Francisco, puts it “civil disobedience is required to gather mushrooms in California.” He knows the consequences first hand having spent a week in a shoplifting rehabilitation program after he was caught picking on private property. Some state and national parks have legal limits for gathering mushrooms. Chez Panisse doesn’t ask the hunters who show up at the back door for place of origin and really it doesn’t matter so long as they are edible and delicious.