On 05/22/2012 01:30 AM, Janet wrote:
In article ,
says...

Ragnar wrote:
The sample is rather small but it looks to me like Coprinus comatus (Shaggy
Ink Cap) not fully grown.
Very tasty fried in a little butter.

Absolutely definitely not going to be giving it a try. :-P
We have edible mushrooms growing outside hte house - one of my neighbours
has eaten them and says they're nice, and she's not died, but I'm still
really quite paranoid about them. (They're big field mushrooms, I think,
with big white tops and pink gills)

Not worth the risk; this entire family now lives in dialysis after
eating poisonous wild mushrooms in Scotland

http://tinyurl.com/bmfzop3

Janet

That's a bizarre mistake, difficult to understand. What he ate as
gills, the other has tubes! Boletus in general are very safe if you
know what you're doing. (IFF).

-E

Good, you have the advantage of seeing the actual item, we have only a poor photograph. The best thing to do if taking pictures of mushrooms for identification is:
(1) remove the whole thing, including the base of the stem
(2) after taking photos of it whole, cut it in half vertically and take a photo of the section. This is especially useful as it enables us to see the form of the gills, which is often a critical identification feature.

In article , Sacha wrote:
On 2012-05-22 07:04:50 +0100, Emery Davis said:

Not worth the risk; this entire family now lives in dialysis after
eating poisonous wild mushrooms in Scotland

http://tinyurl.com/bmfzop3

That's a bizarre mistake, difficult to understand. What he ate as
gills, the other has tubes! Boletus in general are very safe if you
know what you're doing. (IFF).

Well, like many who pick mushrooms, they really did think they knew
what they were doing and they've done it many times. They're now
awaiting a kidney transplant.

Ignorance always has killed. They didn't have even enough of a clue
to know that they didn't have a clue.

Emrys is right. There are quite a few fungi where there are simple,
reliable rules - and one of those is (almost) never to eat anything
until it has developed far enough to tell its gill type, colour and
whether it has a ring or volva. Both boleti and trumpet fungi
(including chanterelles) can be reliably identified and the only
plausible mistakes are with non-lethal varieties. But you DO need
to know what you are doing, and be careful - just like driving on
a motorway.

The same is NOT true for white or brown fungi that look like young
chestnut or common mushrooms.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

He thought he was picking chanterelles, not boletes. Chanterelles do have gill-like wrinkles on them. But although it isn't quite as big a mistake as mistaking gill fungi for a bolete, it was still a pretty implausible mistake to make for anyone who had any basic knowledge at all: like mistaking a lychee for a strawberry, or a nectarine for an apple - some very superficial visual similarity, but anyone with any sense of the look and feel of the thing would never make such a mistake. As Nick said so well, they were so ignorant they didn't realise how ignorant they were. We are very ignorant of fungi in this country; in other countries there is much more general knowledge about them.

I once found an albino death cap, which is a rare thing. My first instinct on seeing it was "mushroom". From above, it does have a mushroom-looking cap. On picking it, I looked at it and then very quickly went "not mushroom". It has several features which are inconsistent with mushroom on closer examination. So I did not eat it. This is a very important discipline you have to have, and you need to be so sure about just what a mushroom looks like you can look at something and say "not mushroom" when it isn't just right. It was only home with the book that I identified it, and realised how important it was to have got that one right.

My Czech relatives eat lots of Amanita rubescens. They have to be darn sure they aren't picking Amanita pantherina. They know this. I won't pick A rubescens, because I'm not sufficiently confident about making that distinction with 100.0000% reliability. You need to know your limits.

In article , Sacha wrote:

Not worth the risk; this entire family now lives in dialysis after
eating poisonous wild mushrooms in Scotland

http://tinyurl.com/bmfzop3

That's a bizarre mistake, difficult to understand. What he ate as
gills, the other has tubes! Boletus in general are very safe if you
know what you're doing. (IFF).

Well, like many who pick mushrooms, they really did think they knew
what they were doing and they've done it many times. They're now
awaiting a kidney transplant.

Ignorance always has killed. They didn't have even enough of a clue
to know that they didn't have a clue.

According to reports at the time, both couples have been picking
mushrooms for many years, without any adverse effects. I think this
just shows how dangerous it can be, even when someone *does* suppose
they have plenty of experience and know what they're doing.

Not in the slightest. There are a huge number of extremely dangerous
activities where you can get away for doing it for years without
having a clue what you are doing. The point is that there is a very
low probability of a major problem, but the severity of such problems
is vast. Using chainsaws is another example.

Anyone who knows what they are doing will not mistake those two
species - they are blindingly obviously different - and the culprit
belongs to a form that will ring alarm bells in the mind of anyone
who has a clue and is being even reasonably careful.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
echinosum wrote:

He thought he was picking chanterelles, not boletes. Chanterelles do
have gill-like wrinkles on them. But although it isn't quite as big a
mistake as mistaking gill fungi for a bolete, it was still a pretty
implausible mistake to make for anyone who had any basic knowledge at
all: like mistaking a lychee for a strawberry, or a nectarine for an
apple - some very superficial visual similarity, but anyone with any
sense of the look and feel of the thing would never make such a mistake.
As Nick said so well, they were so ignorant they didn't realise how
ignorant they were. We are very ignorant of fungi in this country; in
other countries there is much more general knowledge about them.

I once found an albino death cap, which is a rare thing. My first
instinct on seeing it was "mushroom". From above, it does have a
mushroom-looking cap. On picking it, I looked at it and then very
quickly went "not mushroom". It has several features which are
inconsistent with mushroom on closer examination. So I did not eat it.

Well, you're still posting :-) It was definitely A. phalloides not
A. verna or A. virosa? I have seen at least one of those, but not
an albino A. phalloides. Not that it makes much difference if you
eat any of them!

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.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
says...

On 05/22/2012 01:30 AM, Janet wrote:
In article ,
says...

Ragnar wrote:
The sample is rather small but it looks to me like Coprinus comatus (Shaggy
Ink Cap) not fully grown.
Very tasty fried in a little butter.

Absolutely definitely not going to be giving it a try. :-P
We have edible mushrooms growing outside hte house - one of my neighbours
has eaten them and says they're nice, and she's not died, but I'm still
really quite paranoid about them. (They're big field mushrooms, I think,
with big white tops and pink gills)

Not worth the risk; this entire family now lives in dialysis after
eating poisonous wild mushrooms in Scotland

http://tinyurl.com/bmfzop3

Janet

That's a bizarre mistake, difficult to understand.

He'd "been told" wrong information, and although he had an ID book he
didn't double check for himself. Presumably he trusted the absent
informant.

Which pretty much sums up the danger of people asking here, for second
hand mushroom ID.

Boletus in general are very safe if you
know what you're doing. (IFF).

That's just what he thought....

Janet

In article ,
Janet wrote:
In article ,
says...

That's a bizarre mistake, difficult to understand.

He'd "been told" wrong information, and although he had an ID book he
didn't double check for himself. Presumably he trusted the absent
informant.

Which pretty much sums up the danger of people asking here, for second
hand mushroom ID.

That is erroneous. Whenever I have seen such a post, most of the
information-providing responses have had more warnings about the
dangers than a positive id. In particular, it isn't possible to
identify most species (or even genera!) from a description given
by an amateur. Asking here is one of the safer things to do, but
the answer will usually be "Either learn how to identify edible
and lethal fungi properly, or don't eat any you pick."

Boletus in general are very safe if you
know what you're doing. (IFF).

That's just what he thought....

No, that's only a small part of what he thought. He also thought
that he knew what he was doing, and clearly didn't.

As several of us have pointed out, double-checking for pores (and
not eating any that aren't open enough to tell) is the key, and
that would have prevented this. There are some poisonous boleti,
but the death rate is infinitesimal (wikipedia claims one death,
in toto) and all of the riskiest species can be avoided by using
a simple, reliable rule.

I am VERY rusty on my fungi, and one of the very few that I would
happily pick and eat without asking someone else to double-check
or going though my books very carefully is B. edulis.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

The article seemed quite specific that he had mistaken Cortinarius for ceps, and the picture caption said the same. But then it was the Daily Mail.
Yes. I won't eat anything unless a) I have identified it with what I feel is certainty b) there isn't anything poisonous that I could possibly mistake it for.

It means I miss a lot of treats.

I was curious that several readers commented "why take the risk when you can buy them from the supermarket?" Either they go to a much more interesting supermarket than I do, or they are unaware of the different flavours of mushrooms.

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?
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!

wrote in message
...
Keith Cunningham wrote:
http://comps.org/vicky/mushroom.jpg

It was growing in a tray of flower-seedlings, where I had shoved the
packet in
the edge of the soil and it had got damp.

(It's about 1/5" tall, with a slightly shaggy top, nothing of note under
the
soil - that's the soil it came from on top of the packet)

Maybe this one?
http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/galle...erresult. asp

First thought was yes - the third of the photos on that page looks just
like it. But I think the gills are darker in mine than that one.

But thank you. I'm only looking for curiosity sake, so if I don't get
an exact match it's not a problem.


I do like the idea that mushrooms that pop up in your garden are edible and
maybe some are. I was afraid to eat something that I thought was a perfect
specimen of a parasol mushroom under my trees and perhaps it was fine.
So I ate another different one that emerged - looked like a small field
mushroom, but kinda not the same but who knows if they change as they grow.
My insides were turned out for days - I thought I would never get off the
toilet. It must have been poisonous. How lucky was I that my body cleared
it.
Yes, I have a mushroom book. No, even with that will I risk it again.
I only buy mushrooms from the supermarket now.

In article , 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.

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

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


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

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.

In article , wrote:

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'.

Well, to a first approximation, anything that looks 'mushroom-like'!
There are rules to distinguish Psalliota (all right, Agarica) from
Amanita, but they do require a bit of expertise. Byond that gets
rapidly trickier.

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?)

Apricots.

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

Eyww.

Precisely. Vegetable sheeps' eyes, but with little flavour.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Martin wrote:
In my opinion some of those who collect and eat wild mushrooms/fungii
are obsessive. I worked with two. I very reluctantly tried a slice of
puffball that one had collected. It was tasteless with the texture of
a foam sponge. I am sure others will disagree.

I don't like raw mushroom anyhow, so wouldn't be eating a slice of anything
uncooked.

Old cartoon of a market scene
Edible fungii $2/pound. Guaranteed edible fungii $10/pound

:-D

You can eat stinkhorns when still in the jelly egg stage, too,
and I tried them once. Mind boggling.
Some fungii are mind altering :-)

This is kind of where the conversation (with Nick (my one, not Cambridge one),
before the post) started.