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In California, Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Are the Forager's Bane

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Re: In California, Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Are the Forager's Bane

#11

Post by pyre »

microcolonel wrote: post #9

I have to say; when I was a kid (in Alberta, not California), the general advice was not to pick and eat mushrooms without significant knowledge. I don't really see the allure either, common table mushrooms are very tasty and plentiful. I think this is just one of the Darwin award's new qualifying categories.

Mushrooms can have a variety of flavours. I bought one at a farmer's market in Oregon several years ago that smelled like fried fish, and tasted a bit like it too. It was only cooked over a grill with some olive oil. It was a "found" mushroom too, the guy before me was chatting with the seller about training truffle-finding dogs.

My favourite hot-and-sour soup is filled with a variety of funguses (well 2 or 3). Though these are not "found" mushrooms, they are different from the "common table mushrooms" that I believe you're talking about.

edit: This is the one that I bought at the farmer's market: http://www.specialtyproduce.com/produce/Abalone_Mushrooms_32...

Re: In California, Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Are the Forager's Bane

#12

Post by cjensen »

microcolonel wrote: post #9

I have to say; when I was a kid (in Alberta, not California), the general advice was not to pick and eat mushrooms without significant knowledge. I don't really see the allure either, common table mushrooms are very tasty and plentiful. I think this is just one of the Darwin award's new qualifying categories.

Yes, that is the normal advice for California too.

Usually it's immigrants who die from death caps due to mistaken identity. The article is shocking to me because it involves a non-immigrant picking and eating mushrooms without expert knowledge: that's suicidal behavior.

Re: In California, Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Are the Forager's Bane

#15

Post by kyleblarson »

microcolonel wrote: post #9

I have to say; when I was a kid (in Alberta, not California), the general advice was not to pick and eat mushrooms without significant knowledge. I don't really see the allure either, common table mushrooms are very tasty and plentiful. I think this is just one of the Darwin award's new qualifying categories.

Have you tasted Morels?

Re: In California, Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Are the Forager's Bane

#16

Post by Alex3917 »

flashman wrote: post #13

It'd be cool if there were mushroom-testing reagent kits, like for MDMA etc. Edit: apparently chemical tests exist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_tests_in_mushroom_ide...

It's not needed, it only takes an hour or so to teach a beginner the major genuses that contain poisonous species. In fact for the first year the rule is basically that if it looks like a mushroom then don't eat it.

Re: In California, Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Are the Forager's Bane

#18

Post by andlier »

Here in Norway we had this publicly funded mushroom control staff located strategically near the forest to allow people to get their mushroom-forage checked by an expert. They would literally go through all the mushrooms in your basket and throw out any mushrooms they couldn't positively identify as edible. Unfortunately the money "ran" out. I guess we'll take the hit as an increased spending on public healthcare instead. http://www.newsinenglish.no/2015/08/10/money-ran-out-for-mus... edit: here's a better link with pictures, but in norwegian: http://www.nrk.no/norge/savner-stotte-til-soppkontroll-1.119...

Re: In California, Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Are the Forager's Bane

#20

Post by maxerickson »

madengr wrote: post #17

Somewhere I read that if a mushroom has white gills then it could be poisonous, and that brown gills are safe to eat. Not that I'm going to pick mushrooms, but is that advice sound?

I did a couple minutes of looking to find a poisonous mushroom with brown gills:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galerina_marginata

Such simplistic rules are a bad idea when foraging. Before you eat anything, positively identify it.

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