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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.
Still. I enjoyed the detail I never would have discovered!
Good memory !
But before they kill you, would they taste good with pasta?
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.
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
So not mushroom for error. 🫤
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And you can look at the Sun through a telescope twice in your life
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Have you tried Lion’s Mane? Has a meaty texture, you might dig it.
I have not, but I will look into it at some point, thanks.
Lions mane and chicken of the woods. Grill em, hit em with some garlic butter and lemon pepper. Pretty dang good imo.
have you tried Pleurotus? It’s texture and taste is quite similar but relatively weaker.
It grows on wood like shiitake.
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.
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
I’ve eaten 6 of the ones on your list! Hoping to add morels very soon.
Black staining polypore is also one that is super easy to ID, the very edges are edible, the inside fronds get very tough, but you can cook those up to make a phenomenal goth broth that works well in chicken noodle soup.
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).
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.
“And these, will go great with a pizza AND kill you.”
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.
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
the best meal you’ll ever have in the rest of your life
Which ones go well with pasta and will kill me the in-laws are visiting and I need an excuse not to be here
Everyone needs a Paul Stamets on speed dial for emergency mycological classification.
Hey, Paul, should I eat this mushroom I found?
Mycophobia is too real y’all.
¿Por qué no los dos?
Ruleta rusa
