I grew up in Russia, and like in many other Slavic cultures, mushroom foraging was a time-honored family affair. Some of my fondest memories are of picking mushrooms with my grandmother, who taught me all I know about identifying them. I still forage them all the time here in the States.
I'm sorry, but it continues to baffle me how someone can mistake an Amanita for a Coprinus (or Agaricus). To my eyes they're as different as a bottle of milk and a bottle of Drano. I suppose I can see how very young specimens of Amanita can resemble other varieties, but then you can follow a simple rule: if it looks remotely like a baby Amanita... don't take it! There are plenty of other mushrooms that are virtually unmistakable.
And then the idea of not double-checking what you foraged before cooking and eating it? That's... unconscionable. I've been foraging for 30+ years, and I still examine each individual specimen before putting it in the pot.
It's a shame because these kinds of stories create unnecessary fear in Americans about picking things from the wild, when there are so many great tastes and experiences right there at your fingertips.
> when there are so many great tastes and experiences right there at your fingertips.
As someone who has cooked with exactly one kind of mushroom (button) I find this intriguing. I thought all mushrooms taste more or less the same. I may have eaten something at a restaurant, but don't remember anything unique.
> It's a shame because these kinds of stories create unnecessary fear in Americans about picking things from the wild, when there are so many great tastes and experiences right there at your fingertips.
To be fair, until we have better tools to diagnose and treat the tick-borne illnesses that are prevalent in the US, it still isn't the safest hobby. This year I finally got sick of worrying about Powassan virus et al. so largely gave up spending time in the woods and just bought a road bike for outdoor time instead.
I think it really helps to be taught by someone who knows what they're doing. Where I live (Poland) it's common to have this knowledge passed down in families. I wouldn't dare to pick up anything based on a picture in a book.
Agaricus could be confused with white amanitas if they miss the capsule or the annulus (capsule is the biggest danger sign). Or a parasol with a A. pantherina. TBH, even the distinct Coprinus comatus could be confused by a beginner to another ink cap that could be really nasty if eaten with alcohol.
I guess mushroom hunting requires a lot of common sense, perception and experience, which a lot of people lacks to some degree.
Quite a few delicious and safe Amanita spp. out there. It's a genus to be careful in, but there are a number of species that can be eaten with a little experience. Amanita calyptroderma and A. vaginata for instance.
Mushroom foraging was common in my family and the ruleset was quite simple – we learnt this as children:
- you have to know a mushroom, that you want to eat, by 100%. You not only have to know the appearance in all possible states (young/old, colour variations, environmental context) but also you have to know the lookalikes and how to differentiate. The point here is: NEVER follow any generic rules (like avoid mushrooms with this or that feature), but reliably identify the type you want to eat!
- to learn to absolutely positively identify a mushroom therefore takes a lot of time. In my childhood I learnt about a dozen edible types, that I would dare to eat. And this knowledge only applies to the geographic region I lived. The same mushroom might have other lookalikes in other regions.
- if there is the slightest doubt, do not eat it.
- when picking, make plausibility checks. For example: does the sample fit to the environment?
- if you have trouble to differentiate a potentially edible mushroom from its lookalike, avoid both.
- if there is the slightest doubt, do not eat it.
- as long as you are learning a new type, do not eat it. If you pick one to examine at home, keep it separated from the others. Buy samples from the market for comparison.
- when you are sure that you have learnt a new edible type and that you can absolutely identify it, pick one. Double check with the books, when at home. Ask someone else for reassurance, if possible.
- When still sure: prepare one very small sample together with the other mushrooms and only for one member of the family (in my case, that would usually be my father). Observe for reactions for at least 24 hours. If everything is fine, repeat with a somewhat larger ratio the next time. Do so one more time and if everything is still fine, that type would be approved for family use. As a child, it was always a little exciting, not to say creepy, when father tried a new type. But never anything happened of course.
- Some mushrooms only become edible with certain preparation. Make sure to know them. My family would usually avoid those.
>> The point here is: NEVER follow any generic rules (like avoid mushrooms with this or that feature), but reliably identify the type you want to eat!
There's a famous machine learning dataset (cited by at least 50 papers) where the task is to identify mushrooms as "definitely poisonous", "edible" or "not recommended (for eating)":
The following passage I quote from the UCI repository's mirror of the data agrees with your rule:
This data set includes descriptions of hypothetical samples corresponding to 23 species of gilled mushrooms in the Agaricus and Lepiota Family (pp. 500-525). Each species is identified as definitely edible, definitely poisonous, or of unknown edibility and not recommended. This latter class was combined with the poisonous one. The [Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms] clearly states that there is no simple rule for determining the edibility of a mushroom; no rule like ``leaflets three, let it be'' for Poisonous Oak and Ivy.
So that's just the mushrooms in two families, and there's no definite rule to identify them as poisonous or not. To be honest, I think I'll make up a rule on the spot: "if it's growing wild, I won't eat it" :0
Yeah something along those lines, apart from testing new stuff (god knows how long some toxins take to manifest or how strong they are, why risk life/health for few bites). We knew around 10+ of types that grow around us and all their variations, didn't touch anything else.
It is a wonderful activity, hike in dense forests for hours, coupled with treasure hunt that you can eat afterwards (or dry for later). Great for kids too.
The thing is, when I moved to Switzerland, the amount and types of mushrooms changed dramatically, for the worse in this case. Alps around here seem to be pretty desolate place, and of those mushrooms I can find most are not known to me, so big no-no. Funny how things can change dramatically when you move only 1500km.
The worst people are those that collect all mushrooms they see and then they study them at home. We used to make fun of big city dwellers for this. But this approach is dangerous - not only is there unnecessary destruction to beautiful fungus that will be just thrown away, but also eating something that was touching / has bits of death cap on it cap ain't the brightest idea. Plus without expertise, many edible mushroom might look very similar to dangerous ones.
One of the reasons I never dared to pick up magic mushrooms in the wilderness - they are too similar to some poisonous ones back home. Not worth the risk, not unless I would know all variations of them by heart.
Although it's not quite the same thing, this reminds me a bit of amnesic shellfish poisoning. In addition to all the terrible gastric problems ASP has the curious side-effect of severe permanent anterograde amnesia, where all memories before the incident are retrained, but the poisoned individual can't create new long term memories. So they're limited to working memory which only lasts a few seconds.
However research has shown that some specific types of long term memories can be still be made. For instance if an amnesiac individual is asked to draw the same image repeatedly, they may still improve in speed and efficiency without any apparent conscious memory of having drawn the image before.
If you're ever in SF and have a bit of an afternoon, the Marine Mammal Center, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, is a fantastic afternoon. It's free to wander about and tours cost ~$10/person. Perfect for an afternoon with the nieces and nephews. They cover ~600 miles of coastline on the western US, including Hawaii, and help with marine mammal rehab and study.
One of the KEY functions of the center is the monitoring of demoic acid in marine mammals, the cause behind Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning. Much like us terrestrial mammals, demoic acid is a heck of a terror for marine mammals too. When lots of seals and otters show up with high amounts of demoic acid in them, the Marine Mammal Center can issue alerts to local health officials to help us humans steer clear of seafood and to increase monitoring of the oceanic food chain.
As of this last weekend when I was there, they state that they have never seen such an outbreak of demoic acid poisoning on the west coast going back to about 1984.
The Marine Mammal Center is a fantastic place filled with great volunteers and incredible staff. Everyone there is super knowledgable and super dedicated to our oceans. If you have never been, it's a great time and perfect for the little ones. More info here: http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/
Well you can add that to my list of horrifying potential outcomes of being human.
> For instance if an amnesiac individual is asked to draw the same image repeatedly, they may still improve in speed and efficiency without any conscious memory of drawing the image.
So it's basically a human version of cache timing attacks. O.o
Sorry, but this is just so irresponsible. I'm sure I'll be corrected, but it almost needlessly resulted in taking a liver away from someone that needed it not as a result of their own stupidity. Oh, and then while in an emergency room on the brink of death questions why the alternative medicine some friend found online was never used.
The ending almost reads like satire. He was picturing a happy, smiling liver and wonders whether it was that positive visualization or the massive doses of penicillin that did the trick? It’s like something from the Onion.
He doesn't explicitly say, but presumably what the doctors successfully treated him with was alternative medicine, just different alternative medicine. (Silbinin isn't FDA approved in the US.)
In France, you can bring your wild mushrooms to any local pharmacy, and they will ID them for you as a free service. Seems like it would be a useful service to US foragers too!
I grew up deep in the woods. Like any good mother, mine was a little over-protective; I was instructed to not even touchany mushrooms (or other fungus). Period. But if I did touch them, to wash my hands as soon as possible. To this day, I generally leave them alone. If I do pick one up while on a hike, I'll generally wash my hands with whatever drinking water I have on me.
> I'm curious if parents still admonish their kids not to eat wild mushrooms.
Absolutely. Really, eating anything you find in the wild is risky unless you’re completely sure what it is. (Wild strawberries are pretty easy to identify, for example.)
When I was younger, I was taught not to pick up or eat colorful mushrooms - the more colors they had, the deadlier they were, supposedly. At the time, I thought it made sense as the same rule applied for poisonous frogs.
There are essentially no general hard and fast rules like that when it comes to mushroom hunting, there is no substitute for knowing how to positively identify specific species, where specific species should be growing, and knowing what distinguishes them from similar poisonous species.
Can someone give me a quick explainer on why it’s appealing to pick & eat ANY mushrooms in the wild at all? I’m probably just a dumb “city kid”, but I don’t see the appeal whatsoever.
I’d love to get some perspective on why folks enjoy this.
As a city kid who likes doing this, there are two aspects for me.
One is simply the game of going through the forest and carefully scanning the ground, looking at bunches of leaves - is that just leaves? Or a young mushroom just coming out? Then, when you do find a mushroom, checking if it's firm and good to eat, enjoying the alien aspect of the thing etc.
The other aspect is the wonderful taste of these. In my country we have porcini and chanterelle mushrooms in the wild, and finding some makes for an absolutely delicious breakfast the next day. You usually can't get fresh forest mushrooms any other way here, and in the rare occasions that you do find them, they are extremely expensive.
They're really tasty and good for you. There's also a deep primal satisfaction from eating something directly from the wild earth. It's also a long-standing tradition in many cultures.
If you know what you're doing and are very careful and cautious, it is a pretty low-risk activity.
They are awfully tasty fried up with a little butter and it is fun to go for a hike and find perfectly edible, tasty food right there growing wild. As he mentions toward the end, practically no one gets sick from eating wild mushrooms. For instance in the SW United States there is really no way of mistaking anything poisonous for an edible puffball. Some people are more adventurous and will identify questionable mushrooms from a book, but then you’re really taking care not to eat something deadly and don’t proceed if you are not certain.
I only pick the "best" ones around here (Chanterelles, boletus), and those happen to be risk-free because of how they look. I don't pick mushrooms where I'd need to use my judgement to decide whether it is deadly or delicious. It's also very few that are this toxic, and I don't know of anything I'd like to pick that even resembles it (I'd never pick a white mushroom, for example - and that alone lets me dodge the deadly one).
Of course if one doesn't enjoy being in the forest, and don't enjoy eating the mushrooms - there is little point to it.
You're more likely to get sick from restaurant food than forest mushrooms if you use common sense (eat only ones you are sure about, and learn from books/grandma how to be sure, try figure out / photograph the mystery ones before throwing away).
For a more positive outlook on why people get enthusiastic about mushrooms, I recommend the amazing book "All That The Rain Promises And More...", which has probably the best cover of a non-fiction book I've ever seen:
Almost every year, I read an article about a family (usually from Eastern Europe) that was picking mushrooms and misidentified an amanita as somethign they recognized from their home country. THey usually end up at UCSF (world-class transplants) and it's typically the kids who are affected the most.
If anyone wants to start eating wild mushrooms and doesn't want to poison themselves I recommend this approach:
1. Choose one edible mushroom species that is often found in your region and is difficult to mis-identify (ceps, giant puffballs, beefsteak, field mushrooms etc)
2. Get to know this species inside out and learn which species look similar to it, especially any poisonous species. Learn the visual differences.
3.Learn the diagnostic tests (spore prints, smell tests, color changes on bruising).
4. Go mushroom picking!
5. Don't eat anything until you've picked this species so many times that you have become expert in identifying it.
The thing that was most frustrating for me to read was the 30 minute wait at the hospital to even be registered and diagnosed. (in the critical -- I assume -- first hours when the thing is making it's way into your bloodstream)
In a situation like that, I like to tell myself at least, I would loudly and firmly say, "I've been poisoned, time is of the essence, can you please stop what you're doing and help me, this is urgent!"
There is no antidote for Amanita poisoning, so treatment is entirely supportive. Drinking that liter of charcoal 30 min earlier would not have made a perceptible difference, given that the author's body was already busy expelling at both ends.
Personally I was more astonished that it took him over five hours after the symptoms started to get himself medical attention, even though he himself realized it was likely Amanita poisoning!
The author seems highly irresponsible. You don't just play around with mushrooms that you pick yourself from the woods - and you especially not cook / eat them, without double / triple checking them. When you are in doubt - you simply avoid eating them and taking risks.
What happened to him is 100% his fault and was easily avoidable, I cannot have sympathy for that.
While everyone's commenting about how foolish the author was with his choices, I think the main point point is that this is a very well written chronicle of facing certain but not immediate death and what that feels like, down to the minutiae at the hospital.
Not directly related but mushroom-guru Paul Stamets recommends against eating Portobello mushrooms or -if you eat them- at least cook them very very well. Paul doesn't dare to go into too many details regarding this mushroom though:
[+] [-] dmitrybrant|6 years ago|reply
I'm sorry, but it continues to baffle me how someone can mistake an Amanita for a Coprinus (or Agaricus). To my eyes they're as different as a bottle of milk and a bottle of Drano. I suppose I can see how very young specimens of Amanita can resemble other varieties, but then you can follow a simple rule: if it looks remotely like a baby Amanita... don't take it! There are plenty of other mushrooms that are virtually unmistakable.
And then the idea of not double-checking what you foraged before cooking and eating it? That's... unconscionable. I've been foraging for 30+ years, and I still examine each individual specimen before putting it in the pot.
It's a shame because these kinds of stories create unnecessary fear in Americans about picking things from the wild, when there are so many great tastes and experiences right there at your fingertips.
[+] [-] peanutz454|6 years ago|reply
As someone who has cooked with exactly one kind of mushroom (button) I find this intriguing. I thought all mushrooms taste more or less the same. I may have eaten something at a restaurant, but don't remember anything unique.
[+] [-] Alex3917|6 years ago|reply
To be fair, until we have better tools to diagnose and treat the tick-borne illnesses that are prevalent in the US, it still isn't the safest hobby. This year I finally got sick of worrying about Powassan virus et al. so largely gave up spending time in the woods and just bought a road bike for outdoor time instead.
[+] [-] antisemiotic|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mda|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greencore|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wiremaus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sizzle|6 years ago|reply
They were quite delicious!
[+] [-] AlphaGeekZulu|6 years ago|reply
- you have to know a mushroom, that you want to eat, by 100%. You not only have to know the appearance in all possible states (young/old, colour variations, environmental context) but also you have to know the lookalikes and how to differentiate. The point here is: NEVER follow any generic rules (like avoid mushrooms with this or that feature), but reliably identify the type you want to eat!
- to learn to absolutely positively identify a mushroom therefore takes a lot of time. In my childhood I learnt about a dozen edible types, that I would dare to eat. And this knowledge only applies to the geographic region I lived. The same mushroom might have other lookalikes in other regions.
- if there is the slightest doubt, do not eat it.
- when picking, make plausibility checks. For example: does the sample fit to the environment?
- if you have trouble to differentiate a potentially edible mushroom from its lookalike, avoid both.
- if there is the slightest doubt, do not eat it.
- as long as you are learning a new type, do not eat it. If you pick one to examine at home, keep it separated from the others. Buy samples from the market for comparison.
- when you are sure that you have learnt a new edible type and that you can absolutely identify it, pick one. Double check with the books, when at home. Ask someone else for reassurance, if possible.
- When still sure: prepare one very small sample together with the other mushrooms and only for one member of the family (in my case, that would usually be my father). Observe for reactions for at least 24 hours. If everything is fine, repeat with a somewhat larger ratio the next time. Do so one more time and if everything is still fine, that type would be approved for family use. As a child, it was always a little exciting, not to say creepy, when father tried a new type. But never anything happened of course.
- Some mushrooms only become edible with certain preparation. Make sure to know them. My family would usually avoid those.
- if there is the slightest doubt, do not eat it.
[+] [-] YeGoblynQueenne|6 years ago|reply
There's a famous machine learning dataset (cited by at least 50 papers) where the task is to identify mushrooms as "definitely poisonous", "edible" or "not recommended (for eating)":
https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/mushroom
The following passage I quote from the UCI repository's mirror of the data agrees with your rule:
This data set includes descriptions of hypothetical samples corresponding to 23 species of gilled mushrooms in the Agaricus and Lepiota Family (pp. 500-525). Each species is identified as definitely edible, definitely poisonous, or of unknown edibility and not recommended. This latter class was combined with the poisonous one. The [Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms] clearly states that there is no simple rule for determining the edibility of a mushroom; no rule like ``leaflets three, let it be'' for Poisonous Oak and Ivy.
So that's just the mushrooms in two families, and there's no definite rule to identify them as poisonous or not. To be honest, I think I'll make up a rule on the spot: "if it's growing wild, I won't eat it" :0
[+] [-] saiya-jin|6 years ago|reply
It is a wonderful activity, hike in dense forests for hours, coupled with treasure hunt that you can eat afterwards (or dry for later). Great for kids too.
The thing is, when I moved to Switzerland, the amount and types of mushrooms changed dramatically, for the worse in this case. Alps around here seem to be pretty desolate place, and of those mushrooms I can find most are not known to me, so big no-no. Funny how things can change dramatically when you move only 1500km.
The worst people are those that collect all mushrooms they see and then they study them at home. We used to make fun of big city dwellers for this. But this approach is dangerous - not only is there unnecessary destruction to beautiful fungus that will be just thrown away, but also eating something that was touching / has bits of death cap on it cap ain't the brightest idea. Plus without expertise, many edible mushroom might look very similar to dangerous ones.
One of the reasons I never dared to pick up magic mushrooms in the wilderness - they are too similar to some poisonous ones back home. Not worth the risk, not unless I would know all variations of them by heart.
[+] [-] jogundas|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rectangletangle|6 years ago|reply
However research has shown that some specific types of long term memories can be still be made. For instance if an amnesiac individual is asked to draw the same image repeatedly, they may still improve in speed and efficiency without any apparent conscious memory of having drawn the image before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesic_shellfish_poisoning
[+] [-] Balgair|6 years ago|reply
One of the KEY functions of the center is the monitoring of demoic acid in marine mammals, the cause behind Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning. Much like us terrestrial mammals, demoic acid is a heck of a terror for marine mammals too. When lots of seals and otters show up with high amounts of demoic acid in them, the Marine Mammal Center can issue alerts to local health officials to help us humans steer clear of seafood and to increase monitoring of the oceanic food chain.
As of this last weekend when I was there, they state that they have never seen such an outbreak of demoic acid poisoning on the west coast going back to about 1984.
The Marine Mammal Center is a fantastic place filled with great volunteers and incredible staff. Everyone there is super knowledgable and super dedicated to our oceans. If you have never been, it's a great time and perfect for the little ones. More info here: http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/
[+] [-] taneq|6 years ago|reply
> For instance if an amnesiac individual is asked to draw the same image repeatedly, they may still improve in speed and efficiency without any conscious memory of drawing the image.
So it's basically a human version of cache timing attacks. O.o
[+] [-] catalogia|6 years ago|reply
The solution to fungus is... more fungus! Really goes to show the incredible breadth of this form of life.
[+] [-] jimueller|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gatherhunterer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hinkley|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Alex3917|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ridaj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mizzao|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daveslash|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gbronner|6 years ago|reply
The first time I was with a family friend and watched him pick and eat wild mushrooms, it was as if I'd discovered a new strain of magic.
Today, I'll eat chicken mushrooms if they look exactly like the ones I've seen before. Otherwise I'll pass.
I sort of feel like those killer whales that have to be taught by other whales that fish are food, as their pod specialized in seals or penguins.
[+] [-] egdod|6 years ago|reply
Absolutely. Really, eating anything you find in the wild is risky unless you’re completely sure what it is. (Wild strawberries are pretty easy to identify, for example.)
[+] [-] pvaldes|6 years ago|reply
It depends on the culture
[+] [-] ayakura|6 years ago|reply
After reading the article and looking at Wikipedia's list of deadly fungus species, I'm not so sure if that rule also applies to mushrooms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadly_fungus_species
[+] [-] throwaway2048|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpuderer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linuskendall|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nlh|6 years ago|reply
I’d love to get some perspective on why folks enjoy this.
[+] [-] tsimionescu|6 years ago|reply
One is simply the game of going through the forest and carefully scanning the ground, looking at bunches of leaves - is that just leaves? Or a young mushroom just coming out? Then, when you do find a mushroom, checking if it's firm and good to eat, enjoying the alien aspect of the thing etc.
The other aspect is the wonderful taste of these. In my country we have porcini and chanterelle mushrooms in the wild, and finding some makes for an absolutely delicious breakfast the next day. You usually can't get fresh forest mushrooms any other way here, and in the rare occasions that you do find them, they are extremely expensive.
[+] [-] forgotmypw3|6 years ago|reply
If you know what you're doing and are very careful and cautious, it is a pretty low-risk activity.
[+] [-] flatline|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alkonaut|6 years ago|reply
Of course if one doesn't enjoy being in the forest, and don't enjoy eating the mushrooms - there is little point to it.
[+] [-] fulafel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlexCoventry|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AceJohnny2|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_That_the_Rain_Promises_and....
[+] [-] alistproducer2|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dekhn|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpuderer|6 years ago|reply
I am assuming that the author doesn't drink alcohol, otherwise Inky Caps aren't so great either (though not generally fatal).
[+] [-] amatecha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martingoodson|6 years ago|reply
1. Choose one edible mushroom species that is often found in your region and is difficult to mis-identify (ceps, giant puffballs, beefsteak, field mushrooms etc)
2. Get to know this species inside out and learn which species look similar to it, especially any poisonous species. Learn the visual differences.
3.Learn the diagnostic tests (spore prints, smell tests, color changes on bruising).
4. Go mushroom picking!
5. Don't eat anything until you've picked this species so many times that you have become expert in identifying it.
6. Start learning about a new species and repeat.
[+] [-] supernova87a|6 years ago|reply
In a situation like that, I like to tell myself at least, I would loudly and firmly say, "I've been poisoned, time is of the essence, can you please stop what you're doing and help me, this is urgent!"
[+] [-] 9nGQluzmnq3M|6 years ago|reply
Personally I was more astonished that it took him over five hours after the symptoms started to get himself medical attention, even though he himself realized it was likely Amanita poisoning!
[+] [-] dredmorbius|6 years ago|reply
Immediate life-threatening conditions, usually circulatory or pulmonary, gross trauma, overdose, get immediate priority.
Conditions progeessing over days or even hours, not so much.
When you / loved ones walk up and are immediately admitted, be concerned.
[+] [-] hc91|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AceJohnny2|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wsc981|6 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ&t=6300s
Also, Enoki mushrooms should prevent some cancers as was seen in Japan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ&t=6495s
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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