This is the time of year when you can spot dozens of old hippies and young ravers, crawling around in the grassland beneath the Mendip transmission arial or the rolling fields of Wales, looking for these little darlings - the famed 'magic mushroom' of the psilocybin family.They don't provide much in the way of nutrients or taste - they taste very earthy, actually - but they give you a long-lasting and comparatively safe, organic 'trip' if you eat about 15 or so. I used to eat dozens every year, but eventually became tired of the way that the effects tend to hang around for about two weeks or so. What happens is that - long after the initial effects have worn off - you bend down to tie a shoe-lace or whatever, and get a sudden rush of the trip which lasts for about quarter of an hour, and this - as I said - can happen for about two weeks. To me, this suggests that the toxins remain in your body for quite some time, and this cannot do you any good, I think. One or two have the effect of a mild tranquiliser.
These pretty 'Fairy Ring' mushrooms also often harbour a little white mushroom which looks - to all intents and purposes - identical, but one can kill you, and the other is extremely good to eat.I cannot for the life of me remember which one is which...
That mushroom ring looks almost too good to be true. We have a small version in our tiny paddock that usually supplies a good handful of button mushrooms each morning, over several weeks. Not my favourite, but they do fill out a stew!
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, Cro, that photo comes from a landscape gardener's site about how to eradicate fairy rings using pesticides! People get obsessed with perfect lawns, eh?
ReplyDeleteThe reason I am blogging so much is that I've got a bit of time on my hands today, so I am also having an argument about mushrooming with a couple of goody-goodys over on the Wiltshire Times. They refuse (they said) to come over here and see how I stop people stealing my mushrooms. I didn't tell them that I was poaching mushrooms in Longleat only yesterday! Go over and get involved, Cro - it's fun winding them up:
http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/8412492.Not_mushroom_for_sentiment_at_Longleat/#commentsList
That fairy ring is amazing.
ReplyDeleteI always think of Alice in Wonderland with the caterpillar on the huge shroom smoking his hooka. "Who-are-you?"
ReplyDeleteTo my eyes, Tom, that IS a perfect lawn!
ReplyDeleteThat's quite a stash you've got there, sir! And you ought to add you've got to eat them fresh to avoid falling foul of the Misuse of Drugs Act. Incidentally, you probably know that in France pharmacists are all trained to identify edible fungi, and you can take your basket into the local chemists and get it checked out before adding it to the menu. Very civilised.
ReplyDeleteThat fairy ring is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteA wild mushroom risotto is one of my favourite things to eat, but I have never picked my own for fear of getting the wrong ones.
That is correct, Dotterel. I int never sold one in me life. The French pharmacist training is wonderful, and has probably saved quite a lot of lives, not to mention National Health bills. I think the Italians do something similar, though you are more likely to get shot if you go picking on another dealer's patch anyway, so the situation rarely crops up.
ReplyDeleteThe recent influx of Russians and Poles over here has resulted in many more accidental deaths from mushroom poisoning, because the poor young things come from a culture of foraging, but were never given adequate training in identification. They seem to go out and eat absolutely everything they find, and suffer the consequences. Also, these mushroom picnics are (I am told) traditionally associated with a bit of boozing, so the faculties may be dimmed, even in the old and experienced.
Oh, hello Suzanne - you slipped between comments. I like mushrooms, but not a lot of rice, so I won't be going on a rice forage in the fields of Vietnam this year.
ReplyDeletehey I'm not sure about those mushrooms - you put my name in on Elizabeth's jammy blogpost or did I read it wrong.
ReplyDeleteYes, Moll - the mushrooms got me fuddled with all that Welshness. I've apologised to her, now I am to you. Right - time I went to bed.
ReplyDeleteThat ring is divine. I wonder why they naturally grow that way. We don't get many in Australia but I do remember going to New Zealand and seeing lots of the red with white spot ones, which are apparently very poisonous, it was just like an Enid Blyton book. Only more dangerous.
ReplyDeleteThey start as a dot under the ground, Jane, and grow outwards. The wider the ring, the older the fungi is. The mushrooms are just the fruiting body of the plant - the main part, the mycilium (or however the machine wants me to spell it) is underground. The biggest living organism in the world is a single fungi which stretches in a circle which is thousands of miles across, and covers parts of the USA and Russia. It is so big, that they did not realise it was a single creature until very recently. See previous posts about the red and white one!
ReplyDeleteNo need for apologies - 'A rose by any other name........ ' as they say. Enjoy your mushrooms!
ReplyDelete