On Friday, July 4, 2014 12:58:52 PM UTC-4, Terry Coombs wrote:
Nelly W wrote:

On 7/4/2014 8:47 AM, Terry Coombs wrote:

Nelly W wrote:



If he says he is growing his own chanties, then I think maybe he is

a liar. And JFTR, there can most definitely be *very* similar

looking species growing amongst one another. Proximity is no way to

ID anything, presumption here is really not an option if you want to

live long. I _personally_ don't know anyone who's had an allergy to

chanties, ...

OTOH when I grew up nobody heard of anyone in the world ever having

allergy to peanuts, either.



No , he's not cultivating Chanterelles , here's a quote from his

email to me :



"As far as edible mushrooms are concerned, I cultivate the ones we

eat, pluroteus ostreatus, pluroteus eryngii, and hericium erinaceus.

I have tried cultivating some others, unsuccessfully.



because i have found so few edible species in my nature walks in

north central arkansas, i never go looking for them now."



And yes , I know proximity is no indicator . But when you see a

cluster of mushrooms that all look identical , I believe it would be

safe to assume they're the same . Moot point , because I'm not going

to be eating them . I suspect I am sensitive to something in/on

those shrooms , 24 hours after I picked it I'm bustin' out in hives

and they are the only thing different in things I do/eat/handle .





I always feel compelled to stress the importance of judging each

specimen on its own merits, is all. I've found the little orange wax

caps amongst chanties many times, but they are pretty harmless.

Hives? Jeepers. Guess it's a good thing you didn't try eating them.

Although I don't suppose it could've been surrounding vegetation?

Giant hogweed?



I don't really know what triggered it , might have been handling that

mushroonm , might have been the 2 bee stings on monday . Seems to be

lessening today , but then I've been taking the max dose of benadryl .

--

Snag

In all my years of picking and eating from the wild, I've only seen one example of negative reaction to chanterelles. I group of friends and I along with a journalist (who was detailing our foray) were passing about a bottle of chanterelle infused vodka. The journalist had severe throat swelling and severe shortness of breath. Lucky one of the group had some benadryl.

Be careful when trying something new. Only eat a small amount until you see if it affects you. It pays to use caution with new things especially with all the food allergies today.

I teach a wild edibles class once in a while and I've found that I can't eat day lily blossoms. Everyone knows the whole plant is edible but I can't eat the blooms without severe facial itching and tingling. So, go easy on new things until you know.