How to IDENTIFY WILD MUSHROOMS without a FIELD GUIDE! A personal account..

Well deer and rabbits, would probably eat the growing plant and not off a picnic table in the middle of the night. So the ones that ate the mushrooms off the picnic table were probably mice, rats, possum, racoon.

Real smart when dealing with deadly mushrooms

having quoted that, i can only say that over here it is an excellent autumn for picking mushrooms!

most edible boletes do that, but there are other not-so-edibles which do that too.

I'll have to agree, because aren't some things poisonous to us are not for other creatures?

Wrong. Only hallucinogen do that.

that's a well known survival trick however you must account for the wind! and yea i've eaten wild mushrooms multiple times, once it turned my piss neon green but felt no pain

it has nothing to do with immunity; it's about what your kidneys and liver can take. we're talking poisons (no matter how relative), not germs and bacteria.

bullshit. all edible boletes turn blue when you touch the underside of the cap, or the flesh (after cutting).

I just want people to note that this is an account of what I did when I was 12... so dissing the OP is slightly unfair here, this was also before the internet so that option was not available.

Accept it as an amusing anecdote and case study.

Case studies are also essential elements of proper scientific method and research.

Whilst this method of choosing which mushrooms were poisonous or not worked for me, I would strongly suggest identifying them with proper guides and internet research or even better by someone in-the-know who can take you around and show you directly.

I find this all very amusing, because here the bolete "rule" is don't eat the red-pored ones, and don't eat the ones that bruise blue!

Take away: if you know mushrooms in one place, don't assume you know them in another (cf paddy straw/destroying angel confusion for another example of that...)

My Lab bobs for turds in the cat's litter box. That doesn't make them edible for us!

Also sqirrels and chipmunks can eat poisonous mushrooms, I have a few kinds of 'shrooms I will eat, and I leave the rest alone.

what if besides the table you had found a dead animal?

too risky. thanks but no thanks. will plink a couple of birds, a few squirrels, some dandelion greens and purslane. some fresh caught brim cooked over a hardwood fire would be good too washed down with some spruce tip tea.

Blue-staining suillus is edible, just not that great to eat, kinda bland.

interesting; didn't know about these. i think i've been mixing these up with pine boletes.

Yes, those don't follow the "rule," heh. Further demonstrating the uselessness of the general rule approach to edible mushroom identification.

According to Arora they may taste better dried, "like tootsie rolls." I dried some this summer and haven't eaten any yet but they do have a sweet/caramelly aroma.

i have been comparing this afternoon; what i find a lot are pine boletes, the stem is distinctly different.

I agree with you.

Amateurs take a big risk when they harvest wild mushrooms, especially when they serve the fungi to others, said Casey Jonquil, owner of Alpine Foragers in Portland, Ore., who certifies and sells up to 8,000 pounds of wild mushrooms a day. "You just don't do that."

Read more: [link to www.foxnews.com]

i'd say thats rather primitive and stupid. Firstly human chemistry is different to the critters, especially the neuro chemistry for the psychedelic affects of mushrooms.
Also a field guide not only tells you which are eddible but how good they will taste. Edibility and good taste do not go hand in hand.

Also there may be more species of poisons mushroom that you missed, that you might falsely assume is edible because its not a poisons one you memorized from the first batch.

Thread: 2 DEAD and 4 HOSPITALIZED after eating SOUP with WILD MUSHROOMS!

I was 12. It was before the internet, I had no books on the subject..

You're calling a 12 year old boy with natural curiosities of nature "primitive and stupid"

This is a true accounting of what I did. I am not suggesting it as the way to determine which mushrooms are safe or not.

ALL mushrooms to an extent are bad for you btw, it's a fungus.

It is kind of a moot point. Poisonous.. non-poisonous.

All mushrooms soak up cesium like a sponge in a puddle...

Best to grow them yourself in a burlap sack in the basement or a closet.

true, and they absorb heavy metals from the ground.


good luck trying that with symbiotes...

that's crazy talk. chickens eat plenty of stuff that you shouldn't or wouldn't eat.

Great Topic! Thanx!

[link to www.garden.org]

[snip]

A better option is to grow your own. Commercial growers have responded to consumers' love of fresh gourmet mushrooms by introducing kits that produce gourmet mushrooms in no time. Although you won't get an unlimited supply, in a few weeks you'll be eating fresh homegrown mushrooms.

Experimenting with these kits ($20 to $30) is a good way to find out if you want to dive deeper into mushroom growing. If you do get hooked on gourmet mushrooms, you can move on to the next stage: inoculating logs with mushroom spores to gain years of continuous supply growing in your basement or backyard.

Mushrooms 101

Although mushrooms are fungi, the edible part is considered a fruiting body. Mushrooms reproduce by spores, which germinate into white masses called mycelia. To grow, mushrooms need a clean food source such as compost, sawdust, straw, or wood that is free from competing microorganisms. Commercial growers inoculate their medium with pure mycelia grown on spawn (mushroom growers' equivalent of a mushroom seed). The mycelia require temperatures of 70oF to 80oF, a moist medium, and high humidity. Once the mycelia have spread throughout the medium, fruiting will begin as small protrusions called pins. Within a few days, the pins mature into the species of mushroom you're growing. Mushrooms need to be checked daily at this point, since the best flavor and texture are found when the mushroom caps are open, but not fully unfurled and flat.