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“And these, will go great with a pizza AND kill you.”
Geology is similar - one gray rock with brown spots is granite, another is zanzibarite - a name I just made up but that’s the idea. But then doing geology wrong won’t usually kill you.
Mushroom foraging gets so much unreasonable fear that it will kill you instantly the first time you do it. And only people with arcane woodcraft skills and a death wish do it. Yes, there mushrooms that can kill you if you eat them. But a lot of the bad ones will just make you wish they had killed you. But you will survive the experience.
And like many human endeavors, such as skydiving, driving a vehicle, swimming, or crossing a busy street, will quickly get you killed if you do it wrong. It takes education and practice with someone that knows how to do it correctly to learn to do it yourself. Mushroom hunting falls into that same category.
If you wish to do it, take some classes. They can be often found in big cities. Go out with proper experienced guides and perhaps learn a new skill. The hardest part is admitting when you ain’t sure if you are right and then walking away. Or not. It’s up to you.
I still remember when I met a pilot who majored in geology. I asked him “you know the irony in that right?” He says “yep. But hey at least I can tell you about the mountain we’re about to crash into.”
I took a class in Geology, but I failed the final exam…I took everything I had been taught for granite.
LOL!
My college had one geology class and everybody called it Rocks for Jocks, because all the jocks took it to satisfy their science requirement. I heard all you had to do to pass the final was identify all the mineral specimens in this one big display in the hallway. I always saw jocks standing in front of that thing, taking notes so they could memorize it. This was pre-digital-camera.
Lol. Lmao even. Geochemistry is a big deal. Take a look at the Anaconda Mine.
The left ginger woman is actually part of the club. You can see the robes in the rubbish bin behind her and she has a ring on in the top picture.
Good eye!
Nah I just remember seeing this pointed out by someone before.
Good memory !
Still. I enjoyed the detail I never would have discovered!
I do some light general foraging in the forest I live in and mushrooms are a seasonal treat. And I often have Shaggy Mane mushrooms growing in my yard, (don’t worry, I do not use fertilizer or herbicides ever). And fresh chanterelle mushrooms are an edible gift from the gods.
Like most things in life, mushroom hunting isn’t super dangerous, (if you mess up the odds are it won’t kill you outright but they will make you wish it had), but it does take some learning and practice.
Don’t shaggy mane grow on manure substrate? They are probably coming up around dog poo or your leach field/septic tank. Delicious mushroom either way!
Not in my yard. While I have hunting dogs, they aren’t allowed to run free in the yard without supervision during training exercises. But I do have plenty of deer shit-- I live in the middle of a fairly remote forest.
Most of the shaggy manes grow on a clay hillside that gets lots of leaves in the fall. And they grow nowhere else on my 5 acres of lake shore. The wild raspberries grow everywhere like weeds though. And I don’t get bumper crops every year. Sometimes there are none, (wet years), sometimes a small handful, (most years), and sometimes they cover that hillside, (dryer years).
There’s a few top edible mushrooms that look like nothing else. Good starting point
Chanterelle mushrooms are a good one. Delicious, easy to identify, and don’t have a deadly lookalike.
Jack O’Lantern Mushrooms: A Poisonous Chanterelle Look A Like
Jack O’Lantern mushrooms also known as foxfire mushrooms or Omphalotus species, are a poisonous mushroom commonly confused with edible chanterelles.
Not deadly, sounds like – but also not fun! Be careful out there, junior mycologist club members!
“Lookalike” is a relative term for sure. With just a little bit of practice one would never confuse the two. It’s always best to learn side-by-side with someone who can show you what to look for.
A good rule is this: If you have to double-check with a book (or an app or whatever) to identify the mushroom, you do NOT know it well enough to risk eating it.
That is one of the recommend ones in my Mushroom foraging book: Morels, Inky Caps, Cauliflower Mushroom, Chicken of the Woods, Oysters Mushrooms, Chanterells, Giant Puffballs, King Bolete, Black Trumpet and Hen of the Woods.
Chicken of the Woods is another easy, (and VERY tasty), to identify mushroom for beginners once they know what to look for. There are many different types of look a likes, but they are extremely fibrous and chewing and piece of wood would be tastier.
My Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest Guide has a series of top edibles in my region. Morels, Inky Caps, Cauliflower Mushroom, Chicken of the Woods, Oysters Mushrooms, Chanterells, Giant Puffballs, King Bolete, Black Trumpet and Hen of the Woods. All are suppose to be easy to identify without a deadly look alike. I haven’t gotten a chance to try anyone yet but hopefully this year.
I would still recommend going out with an experienced forager until you are comfortable. They can at least offer up good extra information as you hunt them.
Mushroom hunting is fun and tasty, but it does require care, knowledge, and experience. So be safe out there!
For sure. There is a mycology society I might join to help with that. I do a lot of foraging of plants in my yard and neighborhood. So I got to help me look up things as practice. Its been fun and no issues so far
So not mushroom for error. 🫤
But before they kill you, would they taste good with pasta?
Based on this guy’s experience, no.
https://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2006/11/22/i-survived-the-destroying-angel/
I survived the “Destroying Angel”
I took three home with me. I couldn’t find my Mushroom book, was in a hurry, so I trusted my judgment, fried them up in olive oil, and ate them as a side dish. I should have recognized then that they weren’t inky caps, because inky caps exude a black substance when you fry them.
They honestly did not taste that good, rather bland in my opinion. I thought to myself, “Gee, I don’t think I’ll ever pick and eat these again.” (Little did I know the truth of my thought at the time).
I’m glad that it tries to warn you with its terrible taste
I’ve tasted Phalloides, it tastes soft and nutty
The ones in the comic don’t look like death caps, but those are responsible for 90% of mushroom-related poisonings, so we’ll assume artistic license.
Death caps probably would go well with pasta. Here is an article from The Atlantic with someone who has tasted one.
Britt Bunyard, the founder, publisher, and editor in chief of the mycology journal Fungi, has tasted a death cap. “Very pleasant and mushroomy,” he told me. “A nice flavor, and then you spit it out.”
“There’s nothing in the taste that tells you what you are eating is about to kill you.”
How much of it is needed to kill someone?
I’m no expert, but Wikipedia says half of one death cap can kill. For some reason, they don’t offer an upper range for what will kill.
That doesn’t mean you’ll have an OK time eating it in small amounts; it will still make you violently ill and cause damage to your liver.
Before I continue, I want to stress that this is not medical advice or even a personal recommendation. Do not do what I am about to say.
In the case above, the important part is spitting it out. The toxins enter the body via the intestinal walls (which is also why symptoms are fairly delayed), so a taste and spit–and probably some rinsing and even more spitting–will mean that relatively little poison makes it any further than your mouth.
Again, I’m not an expert on mushrooms, medicine, poisons or anything else. All of this is from casual reading from the Internet. Don’t eat poison.
It’s never occured to me to wonder if deadly poisonous plants taste good. What does nightshade taste like?
Apparently they taste like tomatoes, so they would go well with pasta
I’ve had a black nightshade berry and I can confirm it tasted like a sweet tomato. I assume the poisonous ones taste similar, if they were bitter then accidental poisonings wouldn’t be a big concern.
Why not after? 🤓
There are moments where hunting mushrooms in the wild can be very dangerous.
OG loot boxes
You don’t know whether you pulled a legendary until the trees start talking
And the ground waving
and a field mouse with tiny wings and a trunk perched on the top of your beer bottle drinking from it
Thank god I absolutely hate the taste and texture of mushrooms.
I thought I hated mushrooms but it turns out the most common grocery store mushroom is just the worst kind. Crimini/button/portabello it’s all Agaricus bisporus and it sucks. Enoki mushrooms opened my eyes and so far I’ve liked every single mushroom I’ve tried that isn’t that dogshit A bisporus rubbery mud.
I guess. But I don’t think my family ever had bought mushrooms apart from shiitake and truffles. All the rest were hand picked in the forest.
I do too… except for shiitake mushrooms, which I absolutely love.
Other than that, I have yet to have a mushroom I really like. Some of them (like the white kind they put on pizza) I would rate as tolerable.
have you tried Pleurotus? It’s texture and taste is quite similar but relatively weaker.
It grows on wood like shiitake.
I have not. Thanks.
I mean thw stuff they put on pizza barely has any taste at all. At least here. It’s the texture that is disgusting.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of the texture either. But I can tolerate it.
Shiitake mushrooms though… nothing similar in taste or texture. They do have to be prepared by someone who knows how to prepare them right because it does take a little experience, and they’re also expensive unless you want to get them dried and reconstitute them, but those aren’t nearly as good.
That said, if I am in a restaurant and I see them on offer, I will order them.
Portabellos are super disgusting to me. They taste like dirt and have a mouthfeel like dirt too.
Portabellos are super disgusting to me.
Interesting note that you may not know, surprised me when I learned it way back.
Those little white mushrooms that are everywhere, that are on pizza and you get in the store and portabellos (and cremini, if you’ve had those)? Same mushroom species! Just picked at different stages in their life cycle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agaricus_bisporus
When immature and white, this mushroom may be known as:
- common mushroom
- white mushroom[11]
- button mushroom[11]
- cultivated mushroom[12]
- table mushroom
- champignon (French for mushroom) de Paris
The above is what most people in the US think of if one talks about a “mushroom”.
When immature and brown, it may be known variously as:
- Swiss brown mushroom
- Roman brown mushroom
- Italian brown mushroom
- cremini (also crimini) mushroom[13][14]
- chestnut mushroom (not to be confused with Pholiota adiposa)
- baby bella[13]
I’ve seen creminis occasionally.
When marketed in its mature state, the mushroom is brown with a cap measuring 10–15 cm (4–6 in).[14] This form is commonly sold under the names portobello,[14][15] portabella,[16] or portobella. The etymology is disputed.[14][15]
Those are commonly sold as stuff like meat substitutes on burgers.
I think that shiitakes are probably the most-commonly-available species other than that that I’ve seen commercially available.
My own favorites are powdered porcini – I don’t like the smell before being cooked, but they’re great at adding umami to cooked dishes, and the power is easy to get online – and wood ear mushrooms. Wood ears have very little taste, but a neat crunchy texture. I do 'em with olive oil. I can only get them occasionally, fresh, when stores in the area carry them.
Huh! TIL.
Have you tried Lion’s Mane? Has a meaty texture, you might dig it.
Lions mane and chicken of the woods. Grill em, hit em with some garlic butter and lemon pepper. Pretty dang good imo.
I have not, but I will look into it at some point, thanks.
Don’t know about portabellos. Not sure the same mushrooms even grow here as where you are. We mostly eat ones we pick outselves. I never liked going mushroom picking.
I used to hate the texture, but if cooked right they will be tender (canned mushrooms are probably better added near the end of cooking). Gumminess can also be masked by balancing it with other food (particularly meat, vegetables like potato/squash/broccoli) to chew against/alongside it.
Probably doesn’t help if you don’t like the taste, though that could just come down to mushroom variety if not also what dish it’s in (spices etc).
My family loves mushrooms so there are many types they eat. And I don’t like any of them.
I once went for pizza with my gf and had to help her eat hers as well (she can never eat a whole pizza herself). She sadly ordered one with mushrooms and even after taking them off I could not eat more than one piece without getting a strong feeling that I am going to throw up.
Admittedly the mushrooms had quite a strong taste (not the typical ones put on pizza, those barely have any taste hut I still remove them). They left so much of the taste behind it almost made me puke. I just cannot stomach the taste. I have however noticed the mushroom soup my grandma makes (not the cream type) does not have such a strong mushroom taste so I can eat it with just picking out the shrooms.
All mushrooms are edible once.
And you can look at the Sun through a telescope twice in your life
Jokes on you, they’ll all kill me.
Just kidding - jokes on me, I’m allergic :(
To all mushrooms? Are you allergic to beer? I’m sorry, I instantly have a thousand questions
Yes I’m allergic to all mushrooms I’ve tried - my allergy report just says “mushrooms” so I’d imagine that means all of them. Not anaphylactic but pretty severe bodily evacuation. I did know someone who was deadly allergic to them though, and he said the doctor told him that magic mushrooms would also kill him.
Are there mushrooms in beer? Beer gives me the runs but I always assumed that was because I also have a wheat intolerance.
That’s okay, I’m used to questions. I’m also allergic to a ton of raw fruits (mainly apples which actually cause anaphylaxis) and raw veggies. Fine when they’re cooked but just not raw ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m sorry, that’s rough. I’m not allergic to them, but I can’t digest most animal fats, and it was really difficult before I just went vegan and stopped trying to figure out what would trigger me. “Pretty severe bodily evacuation” is a good way to put it, actually.
Not mushrooms exactly, but fungus. Beer or fresh wines like Federweißer should still have active yeast in them.
I wonder if there’s a distinction between mushrooms and fungus for allergy purposes. AFAIK, “mushroom” is about as broad a category as “leaf,” but maybe there are structures specific to them that you react to.
I assume penicillin is a no go for you, right?
I’m actually not allergic to penicillin at all so now you’ve got me thinking. It must be a specific kind of mushroom they were referring to in the tests and not all fungi. I certainly haven’t had any luck eating any common mushrooms but I’m not sure it’s all fungi as I don’t have issues with antibiotics and my response to beer is not nearly as bad as when I eat mushrooms.
Sorry you had to go through that as well! I was lucky to be able to get referred to an allergist that dealt with the majority of my environmental allergies with shots at least, but there’s not really a way to manage food allergies other than avoiding them.
Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungus, so it could be that you’re allergic to something common to all mushroom gills or volva. In my case, neither the doctors nor I were really interested in testing it all out, because there’s not much of a benefit and exclusion diets are horrible and take forever.
Luckily, it runs in my family (though not as severely as in me), so I was raised without pork or really fatty cuts of meat, which made it pretty easy to isolate. And I don’t know about you, but I find that I have a pretty Pavlovian response to the idea of eating things that make me sick and don’t miss any of it.
Beer is made with yeast, which are fungi.
But so is bread and every other alcoholic beverage.
¿Por qué no los dos?
Ruleta rusa
From a species that drinks industrial solvents for fun… It doesn’t seem quite so implausible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroying_angel
The name destroying angel applies to several similar, closely related species of deadly all-white mushrooms in the genus Amanita.[1] They are Amanita virosa in Europe and A. bisporigera and A. ocreata in eastern and western North America, respectively.[1] Another European species of Amanita referred to as the destroying angel, Amanita verna—also referred to as the “Fool’s mushroom”—was first described in France in 1780.[2]
Destroying angels are among the most toxic known mushrooms; both they and the closely related death caps (A. phalloides) contain amatoxins.[1]
https://mushroomexam.com/destroying_angel_mushroom_look_alikes.html
Destroying angel mushrooms (Amanita virosa and Amanita bisporigera) are highly poisonous fungi that are often mistaken for edible species. They are white or pale in color and have a distinctive bulbous base, a ring around the stem, and a volva (a sheath-like structure at the base of the stem). They can resemble other edible mushrooms, such as meadow mushrooms or button mushrooms, which can make them difficult to identify.
I tolerate mushrooms on food from restaurants but I would never just eat one from the wild unless I was extremely desperate, the risk/reward is just insane.
I was you two years ago. Then I took a photo of a strange mushroom and posted it online, only to be told it was a choice lions mane and an incredibly valuable and delicious find. Cue four hours consuming all the resources I could to make sure this thing wouldn’t kill me, before eating the tiniest nibble and waiting 24 hours. Yep, it was delicious alright, and because I survived the night, I ate more. I fried it in garlic butter and threw it in soups, I dehydrated it and used it as a thickener. I found more and ate more. Then I learned about chicken of the woods - very distinct with no dangerous lookalikes. Another delicious experience. And so I bought some books. And went on more hikes. Turns out, what I had thought of as danger was just lack of knowledge. I know not to walk in front of a moving car, despite them being all around. Learn what not to eat, learn the ones that can be confused, learn the ones you can’t really fuck up IDing, and it’s not as scary as it seems.
I mean I don’t really spend much time outside or cook in general, like even ignoring the risk part I wouldn’t cook random stuff I find.
the risk/reward is just insane.
I find this take ridiculous, there are poisonous fruits and vegetables would you never eat an apple just because there are poisonous fruits out there?
I mean, I’m not going to pluck a random red berry of a bush and eat it.
But you would eat a blueberry right? And that’s my point. No one eats a random mushroom from the ground but to say I will not eat any mushroom at all because there is too much risk it a crazy take.
I wouldn’t trust a wild blueberry too much ngl.
I mean are there fruits that will kill me if I eat one that look like apples? And generally I wouldn’t eat any random fruit I found in the wild either unless I really had to.
I mean are there fruits that will kill me if I eat one that look like apples?
Yes, there are, they are called Manchineel. But that’s beside the point.
You can pick mushrooms your whole life and never be in any risk, you stick to the beginner friendly species and I would bet you need to be drunk and/or legally blind to make a mistake.
Best way to learn is to tag along with a seasoned mushroom picker and just go with the easier ones that don’t have deathly look-alikes.
Mushrooms are delicious as all hell. Golden chanterelle for example is damn good and easy to recognize.
They could be the best tasting thing in the world and it wouldn’t be worth it
You can trip, fall and die just walking to the bathroom. But more chanterelle for me then heh
Yeah if I don’t shit I’ll also die though lol. More power to you if that’s what you enjoy though
You don’t have to shit in the bathroom though. But we all do our own risk/benefit assessment and it can be very different in different places. Here in Finland it’s easy to pick good mushrooms and it’s a common pastime, I think that’s not the case everywhere.
I would never eat one even if I were extremely desperate, unless I had a mushroom identification book with me.
destroying angel
Tf this is like the most badass name
Lol You’d think we’d have some sort of easy test strips or something for these, but ig not
I’ve no idea whether it would be useful for specifically mushroom identification, but I have before wondered before whether maybe future cell phones could incorporate some kind of hyperspectral imaging camera and light to permit for identifying things that look identical to humans.
Foliage that looks fairly-indistinguishable to human eyes can look different if you can sample at more points on the spectrum than the three that human eyes can check for; this has been used to find marijuana plantations with hyperspectral imaging from the air. But if you can get right up next to something and can control the light that it’s exposed to, I would guess that it’d be an even easier task to identify something. Doesn’t have to just be plants, either.
That’s a fucking badass idea, but I got stuck on this:
identifying things that look identical to humans
I hope we don’t have trouble identifying things that look identical to humans!
Such applications already exist. iNaturalist also helps identify vertebrates and invertebrates.
Don’t those all use a normal phone camera?
Yes
This is why you get mushrooms from the market. And why I avoid “functional mushrooms” because poisoning is a function.
some of the tastiest mushrooms can never be bought “from the market”.
They are rare and their “gatherers” keep their territories as a secret.
Where I live mushrooms from the market are ridiculously expensive. That’s why it’s so common to go mushroom picking yourself. It’s a nice outdoors-y way to spend your time and it’s not that difficult if you get a primer from someone seasoned at it. And some mushrooms you’ll just find a ton without much effort.
it’s not that difficult if you get a primer from someone seasoned at it.
Random thought - this is a rare case where survivorship bias works in my favor. The best mushroom mentors really are the ones that haven’t died.
Or at the very least, the very worst mushroom mentors aren’t around to teach me…
Read a mushroom textbook 30-years ago, so take this as you will, but it’s damned easy to test.
Chip a tiny chunk off with your tooth. Wait 45-mintues. Heart burn, feel weird? Stop. No? Take a bigger chunk. Rinse and repeat.
People act like the tiniest bit of fungus will kill them dead. Not unless your liver has failed, and then you got worse problems.
Anybody know how to trip on Aminata Muscaria? Sure is a lot in the woods around here.
A muscaria isn’t so much a “trip” as it isn’t hallucinogenic, it’s more of a deleriant and disassociative. Also it’s gonna give you stomach cramps. People generally don’t eat them for fun.
The better advice is if you don’t know what something is, don’t put it in your mouth at all. If someone was to try this when they are desperate for food, usually if alone and lost, they could make a bad situation even worse.
There are quite a few stories or people eating death caps (Amanita phalloides), especially after cooking and not being able to detect anything off until they need to go to the hospital.
Aminita muscaria has been used medicinally for years and has some really good potential. If you really want to trip though, just stick with psilocybin. Ibotenic acid is a neurotoxin and there is not a reliable way to test dosages at home. The last dosage advice I read was just eat a half mouthfull and you should be good if your stomach doesn’t cramp up to all hell. (The companies that have been pumping out muscimol gummies recently are shady as fuck if you were wondering.)
The aminita family is still super interesting though and deserves a ton more research.
If someone was to try this when they are desperate for food, usually if alone and lost, they could make a bad situation even worse.
To add to this, people can go for a very long time without food. We have the convention in of eating multiple times a day in modern society, but if a human needs to live off of fat stores – and, later, muscle – they can do it for quite a while, unless they’re very emaciated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri's_fast
Angus Barbieri (1938 or 1939 – 7 September 1990) was a Scottish man who fasted for 382 days,[1] from 14 June 1965 to 30 June 1966. He subsisted on tea, coffee, sparkling water, vitamins and yeast extract while living at home in Tayport, Scotland, frequently visiting Maryfield Hospital for medical evaluation. Barbieri went from 456 pounds (207 kg) to 180 pounds (82 kg), losing 276 pounds (125 kg) and setting a record for the length of a fast.[2]
Water is different – a human can’t go for very long without water. Maybe a week or so, though people have gone longer (albeit that unpleasant things are going to be happening to them). IIRC, the world record is some guy in Austria that got accidentally forgotten about in a jail cell, though he was able to get some condensed water from the walls of his cell.
kagis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Mihavecz
Eighteen days later on 19 April, an officer who had unrelated business in the basement opened his cell after noticing the stench that was emanating from it.[4] Mihavecz needed several weeks to regain his health.[2]
But most people are not really in immediate need of food.
Aminita Muscaria can be eaten. There was either a vice article, or video about it. I recall thin slices and frying them was part of the technique.
I imagine it’s a stomach cramps and vomiting kind of high like poorly prepared peyote/mescaline.
Erowid should have articles/instructions for preparing Aminita Muscaria, just read some trip reports there. They often include basic steps.
P.S Make sure your mushrooms have ALL the anatomy and colours, and spore print colour of the variety you’re looking for.
I followed the work of some A.M. groups for a bit and they have basically proven it can be eaten without dying. The question is, what benefits do the different A.M. compounds have? Unfortunately, everything I heard or read from those groups was anecdotal and not formalized. Admittedly, I am a year or so behind on my fungi studies so there may be new info out there.
Speaking of anecdotal, my experience with psilocybin has been phenomenal. Granted, I don’t eat much anymore, but I don’t really need to. Studies do support its use for PTSD treatment for vets (me) and for recovering addicts and alcoholics (also me). I only mention this as there are likely thousands of undiscovered compounds in mushrooms that may be phenomenal for mental health The evidence (anecdotal or not) is looking good for A.M.
Alas, there are risks.
poorly prepared peyote/mescaline
Wait, there’s a way to not destroy your stomach?
Some will go excellent with pasta and kill you…
