Looking over the wikipedia page on this mushroom and all the similar, very edible ones…Yeah I’m never foraging mushrooms.
Yeah, I carefully read the description of its distinguishing features, studied the photo, and concluded I have no idea what I’m looking at and how to tell them apart.
I’m really good at spotting differences or inconsistencies, I’m totally lost with mushrooms though, and I go multiple times every Autumn with a woman in her 70’s. She is very clear about what we are looking for. She throws out at least half of what I gather.
with a woman in her 70’s
Do these conditions have anything to do with a person’s ability to identify mushrooms
Very likely. Experience is a thing
If she’s that old and likes to forage there’s only so many bad mushrooms you can eat
Mushroom foraging can be safe, but the rules are:
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Always learn from a local guide first. It’s not transferable to other regions. Which makes books a bad way to do it, and the internet a horrible way.
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You don’t rule out dangerous mushrooms, you identify a specific edible mushroom.
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Never trust a little white mushroom.
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chanterelles are pretty safe to forage if they grow near you.
they are very distinct looking.
egg mushrooms 😋
They are so goddamned good, I highly recommend looking around white oak trees by carefully clearing away the leaf litter a few days after it rains. They can’t really be bought in stores and when they do show up they’re like $50 a pound because you can’t really farm them as they have a symbiotic relationship with only certain trees and are very vulnerable to other fungus like mold.
Where I live (mountainous region in Austria) they are everywhere. I just go hiking for a bit so I’m at not too frequented spots and then I can just pick as many as I need, often the floor nearly is more yellow than brown on certain spots.
We don’t have white oaks here but they typically grow in needle forests.
(And we call them Eierschwammerl = egg mushrooms, to explain my previous comment, I just think that sounds much nicer than chanterelles)
Image of a typical spot, took it a month ago ^
And this is why I grow my own. I’m very fond of Albino Texas PE6. Easy to grow, consistent, and you can clone and agar spawn over and over again. Such an aggressive little strain. And looks very distinct. Unmistakable.
There’s nice little kits you can buy online for your kitchen. :)
In my experience, they are quite poor in producing anything worthwhile. Look up the Uncle Ben’s Tek. 90 minute mycology or The Rookie Mycologist have great guides for this, and they’re easy to follow. I’ve gotten amazing results so far.
Those don’t have very good reputations among growers. Bunch of crap you don’t need, and the stuff you do need is garbage quality.
Deleted
Only once. ;)
You can do anything once.
Don’t tempt me with a good time.
You’d have to use a very strange definition of edible. For something to be edible it does not only need to be able to fit down your throat, it has to be capable of nourishing you without harming you. You can swallow paper and it won’t harm you, but it also can’t nourish you and is thus inedible. You can eat this mushroom and it’ll probably provide some kind of nourishment, but then it will swiftly kill you and thus it is inedible.
I would accept a definition of edible which includes things you can’t digest. For example, gold can also be a food additive referred to by the code E175. Can’t digest it, but it doesn’t hurt you. So I could accept someone referring to gold as edible. But I think the barest, most universal element of something being edible is that it doesn’t kill you. If literal deadly poison is considered edible one must wonder what the word “edible” is even supposed to mean.
Jimmy Neutron “sodium chloride” ass reply, “everything is edible at least once” is a common joke that works precisely because words’ definitions are not rigid
Edit: I think it’s best to leave this comment up as I originally wrote it, but I’m also going to go on the record to say that I could’ve and should’ve phrased this a lot more cordially.
A bollard isn’t edible, even once.
There are old mushroom foragers and then there are bold ones. There are no bold, old mushroom foragers.
i didnt even consider that this AI shit was going to claim to be able to ID mushroomsok ive been a little skeptical of the idea so far but now im fully convinced. this dumb ai shit is going to get people killed. like straight up more than one person is going to die because of these upjumped autocorrects masquerading as intelligence. and no one is going to be held responsible.
ooh, amanita
My fucked up brain goes like, “woah, I wonder what death tastes like.”
Saute in a pan with butter and garlic. Death will taste fabulous.
Little salt, little pepper. /
chef’sdeath’s kissThat’s cheating. Anything will taste great with butter and garlic.
Amanita bisporigera, or the aptly named eastern North American destroying angel, if anyone’s wondering.
From Wikipedia:
The principal amatoxin, α-amanitin, is readily absorbed across the intestine, and 60% of the absorbed toxin is excreted into bile and undergoes enterohepatic circulation; the kidneys clear the remaining 40%. The toxin inhibits the enzyme RNA polymerase II, thereby interfering with DNA transcription, which suppresses RNA production and protein synthesis. This causes cellular necrosis, especially in cells which are initially exposed and have rapid rates of protein synthesis. This process results in severe acute liver dysfunction and, ultimately, liver failure.
I could not confirm that it causes liquefactive necrosis of the liver specifically, however. I wouldn’t doubt it, but I couldn’t confirm it.
Edit: I should clarify, I got this from the original thread on Bluesky, not my own identification.
Which mushroom is it then? 😱
Eastern North American Destroying Angel. Half a mushroom is enough to completely destroy your liver and symptoms show up too late to do anything about them
Destroying Angel
No joking around when it came to naming it.
