On 10/05/13 09:28, polygonum wrote:
On 10/05/2013 08:11, Martin Brown wrote:


Probably 40+ years ago I suffered some sort of poisoning from (most
likely) mushrooms, whence my face puffed up and swallowing was
difficult. The emergency quack seemed to resolve it with antibiotics.
I stayed off mushrooms (with difficulty) for a few years.

May not have been the mushrooms fault if antibiotics cured it.

I am generally not keen on eating any form of mushroom. The more I
became interested in finding and photographing them, the less I wanted
to eat them! Especially knowing the identification issues. And that
all too often, a species that has been regarded as safe forever is
suddenly reclassified as dodgy or frankly dangerous.
I cant off hand think of a single example of that.

Plus there is very little known about accumulation of toxins, and
possibly increasing sensitivity when a species is eaten repeatedly.

I think there is considerable knowledge actually

Then people go and eat them raw without due consideration of the
environment in which they grew and the likelihood of bacterial issues.

well deary me. Townies experiencing the countryside and treating it like
Tescos. they deserve to get ill.

There are a few that are pretty much unmistakable and are extremely
widely eaten - I might try some of them. E.g. Blewits when of exactly
the right colour.

Definitely one I _wouldn't_ try.

The absolute beginners pick is the shaggy ink cap. Nothing else looks
remotely like it and if cooked within 20 mins (or simply nibbled raw)
its delicious.

Another one is the giant puff ball. Not really that amusing, but sliced
and fried in bacon fat it improves.

After that just about any agaric that looks white on top with pinky
brown gills is safe apart from the yellow stainer, and that wont kill you.

Morels, if you can find em, are distinctive and delicious.

Shaggy parasols are fairly distinctive too.


Really there are three sorts of fungus. Those that are distinctive and
safe, those that are lethal and you have better know them, and a vast
array in between that will either give you a bad turn or taste either
revolting or not at all. For example I've eaten fairy ring mushrooms
but there isnt really anything TO eat. Waste of time a sniff of flavour
and that's it. I've eaten pluteus, but that as a mushy tasteless load of
earthiness. Same foes for st gerofgres mushroom and something esle we
identified as being edible. Didn't die, but not really worth eatimg IMHO.


Wood mushrooms field mushrooms and horse mushrooms are what I tend to
try and find, and shaggy caps.


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.