GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

phorbin · 29-06-2010, 03:23 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible

In article ,
says...

My father told me a similar story when I was a child
about a little boy who had stolen mushrooms from a neighbors garden, that
night the family had wild mushrooms that they had picked in the forest
but as punishment for his crime the little boy wasn't allowed to eat any.
The mushrooms were poisonous and every member of the family died except
the little boy. For the last 50 years I've wondered why my father told me
that story since the moral of the tale is that crime pays. I assume the
reason he told me the story was because it was something that he had just
read in the newspaper and not because he was conveying a twisted morality
to me. My take on the story was to confine mushroom picking to the
produce aisle of the supermarket. I never realized that the lesson
extended to green plants also, I didn't realize that there were any
deadly leafy plants growing in North America, now I know better.

Whichever way you turn it, the morel of the story is a little twisted.

I'd figure that if there was a message, he wanted you to latch onto the
idea that death, even if you think you know what you are doing, is ever
present ...and that this little boy was left completely alone in the
world for his crime.

A cruel, ironic punishment for a child.

There are a number of edible species with toxic lookalikes.