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I've been intrested in fungi for a while. Got the books, done the spaw prints etc for identification but I've still not ate one. I look at it like this. Is that mushroom really worth burning your mouth out over or even worse killing yourself?

I think you really need someone to take you that has very good experience of fungi and not rely on books and even spore prints for identification.

Andy, in that batch you brought home you said one was one was deadly poisonous. Did it look the same as the rest of the ones you'd picked?

You certainly can't beat a walk with someone who knows a species to show you what to look for! But having said that, I taught myself every mushroom I know (currently around 30, including about 3/4 of the really useful ones) from Roger Philips and the Collins guide I mentioned earlier. I started with a few that you can't mistake for anything else (parasols and ink caps) and tried to add one or two every year. I've been going for 12 years now.

When I find something new in the field, I have my Collins guide with me. It's pretty good, but I only bring a few back with me. Once home I take a really detailed look at them against both books, and spore print to make sure (not having a microscope). If I'm still sure, I'll eat one or two and wait to see if I die. If I'm not sure, I don't eat but instead send piccies out to the tutor of the mycology course in the local further education college to see what he thinks. So far, I've not had so much as a stomach ache - and fresh and dried wild mushrooms are one of the staples of the family's autumn and winter diet.

Not for the incautious, certainly, but I don't think you need to be brave or stupid to do it!

hedgewizard, I suppose you are living to tell the tale! LOL

It's much more common to pick mushrooms here in Sweden. I've been a few times here as late as November. We've found cantarells and other nice ones. We've also found some that aren't at all poisonous, they just don't taste very nice. My husband has been ever since he was small and he says its a rule of thumb to not eat the white ones (obviously button mushrooms are the exception). There's one mushroom thats white, thin and deadly. We still always look them up. It's quite fun to identify them and then have them with food!

That sounds like the destroying angel mushroom, yep highly deadly.

White, thin and deadly? Sounds like my 13 year old after lentils.

hedgewizard wrote:White, thin and deadly? Sounds like my 13 year old after lentils.

Maybe you ought to cook him a bit longer...

My favorite saying about mushroom picking is, 'There are old mushroom pickers and there are bold mushroom pickers, but there are no old bold mushroom pickers'