Spot the edible one! Yes, the homely, comely, fat, Boletus Edulis at the bottom. The other two will definitely kill you, by attacking your internal organs over a period of 48 hours or so until you die of kidney/liver failure - rather like an overdose of Paracetamol.The top one is the 'Destroying Angel', and is very pretty, like a well-made porcelain tea-cup. The middle one is the 'Death Cap', and is dangerous because it can - in a fit of over-enthusiasm - be confused with a variety of good edible ones when young, but only if you don't take care. If in doubt, leave that 'Parasol' alone until it has grown to about 12 inches in height!
Risky business methinks. Even the 'experts' have been known to get it wrong and end up dead or on permanent dialysis! I'll stick with beans on toast.
ReplyDeleteOh, but a handpicked Cepe, fried in butter the same day, is a meal to die for.
ReplyDeleteSue, get to know a few 'unmistakable' mushrooms, and stick to those few. One can never mistake a Parasol (plentiful now), or a Lawyer's Wig, or a Girolle. Just avoid white mushrooms; some will just give you belly-ache, others will kill.
ReplyDeleteThe Destroying Angel has an amusing little trick up its sleeve; after a certain while you begin to feel better, then ZAP, you're dead!
Gosh, I would love to know enough about them to pick a few fresh and saute them in butter. mmm. But I'm not gonna chance it. Too much at stake.
ReplyDeleteToo much steak, more like Willow. I went foraging today, and found the two deadlys above - both of them, but no cepes! When I got home, a cameraman friend of mine was just about to poison his entire family by cooking some inedibles that he mistook for Cepes - even though they had gills...
ReplyDeleteThe silly sod, it's a good job he contacted me, but he really should have known better. Maybe this thing is in the wind? I haven't spoken to him for about 6 months...
Fungi ... my favourite. My kids and me are fungi FREAKS. In autumn we eat the luteobobolina armillaris, clumps of golden beautiful mushrooms that grow from the stumps of dead trees (do you get them in Europe?) and also the plain old field mushrooms. Yum. Amillaris is about as adventuresome as I get though. We also take spore prints on paper, they turn out like ghostly photographs. Really beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI've just Googled them up, Sarah, and I cannot find anything other than Australian ones, so I expect they must be unique to your part. We generally avoid hoards of little yellow mushrooms beneath trees - ours are usually 'Sulphur Tuft' and inedible, if not poisonous.
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