GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

22-05-2012, 11:56 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

wrote:
Perhaps the worst bit of UK ignorance is the belief that you should
select only fungi that look like the ones you get in shops, because
the closest similarities between edible and lethal species are among
those. The oddball ones are much easier to distinguish reliably.
Such as?
Well, boleti, as we have been saying. Also chanterelle and horn of
plenty (with a bit more knowledge and care), jew's ear, beefsteak,
puffballs, hedgehog, sparassis and many others. Not all are good
(though the first three are), but all have the characteristics I
mentioned.

Oops. A handy list, but I was unclear - I meant which are the ones that
are easy to mistake, not the easy to spot 'oddballs'.

I sometimes think it would be a better way of writing an identification book
to start with "this is edible. These are similar ones which are not edible
and must/should be avoided" and work from there. Then "this is edible, there
is nothing even remotely similar to it" would be really handy!
There are some a bit like that, but there is no substitute for

I've never found a guide that does it that way around. :-(

being shown some of them in real life and working on from there.

*nod* I really ought to go on a course/trip some time, but I would still be
really paranoid. I think it may be verging on a phobia, tbh. I'm surprised
I eat the ones from the supermarket. I was very nervous when buying from the
german market in covent garden.

For example, one distinguishing feature of boleti is the texture
of the pores to touch - a bit like foam rubber. Similarly, one
of chanterelles is the smell - a bit like apricots.

Interesting. Apricots, or apricot kernels? (Which I think smell a bit
arsenicky-almondy?)

You can eat stinkhorns when still in the jelly egg stage, too,
and I tried them once. Mind boggling.

Eyww.