Dried European Porcini 1LB

Well, being a big fan of European mushrooms, and missing them a lot, I went ahead and ordered a pound of those. What can I say.Pros:-It is indeed glorified Porcini, aka King Bolete, aka White Mushroom, and smells and tastes great.-The delivery was quick.-Packing is also good, mushrooms are sealed in airtight bags.Cons:-For the whole my childhood and youth me and my family picked and processed every year from 40 to 200 pounds of mushrooms: drying, pickling, salting, freezing. And consumed that later during the winter. I know the whole process by heart from the very beginning to the very end.So back to the purchase: I have no idea where they have been sourced from, but there are three huge problems: a) They are picked using a barbaric method, i.e. not by cutting the mushroom at a ground level, but by pulling the whole mushroom out of the ground. Apart from being unsustainable, this method leaves the lower part of the stem, which is hard unchewable tip with ingrown sand and dirt. b) In violation of the generic mushroom drying technology they are barely cleaned if at all prior to drying. This leaves all the mentioned sand and dirt on the mushroom. The reason - I guess time cost, and weight loss. Dirt and sand do not dry down obviously, and the cleaning part is the most time consuming when dealing with picked mushrooms. But if it is not done with fresh mushrooms, then cleaning is next to impossible afterwards. c) Some mushrooms are wormy, which indicates a problem with quality control. I mean, seriously, buying dried mushrooms with that price tag I do expect some discretion during the picking and the preparation process, as if I would do that myself at least.Conclusion:When cleaned and sorted after the soaking in water - those mushrooms are good to cook. Taste is unbelievably great, enough to suppress the nostalgia. I will give a try to fresh mushrooms from the Oregon Mushrooms, when the season comes.But the next time when I want dried mushrooms, I'll just bring some back from my parents cellar. As I just found out, Department of Homeland Security have no problems with "entering the United States in passenger baggage for personal use" "mushrooms, fresh and dried- above ground parts that are clean and free of soil".P.S. I read some reviews to other Porcinis offered on amazon, apparently they all have the same problem.