Mushroom heaven

We stumbled into a nice little event a couple of days ago. We were driving south to see the villages known as the Bastides, when, in a town square, we saw a sign for "something to do with mushrooms". (That's not actually what the sign said. It said something about a mushroom market but we did not "get" the rest.). We stopped and watched the event unfold. Pretty soon, people with cars full of mushrooms began arriving. It turns out, they were all wild mushrooms. One person weighed the boxes and assigned the vendors numbers. Then, the potential buyers began arriving, surveying the mushrooms. I asked someone if they were restaurant owners but was told they were just people. The church bells rang at three and the buyers started handing over checks. When the big purchases were made, the bargaining began for the leftovers. To give you an idea, the mushrooms were going for $100 for 19 pounds and some for as much as $130. One lovely mushroom sold for $12.