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Fungi: the neglected kingdom

hifinutt said:
tell that to my wife ... she goes bonkers at the slugs in our kitchen when they get in !!
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On the mushroom, all you see is eaten trail... slugs themselves are long gone.

It is a mark of safety in the woods. I am always greatful to the little guys for telling me that this mushroom is safe to eat.
 
My youngest son has been foraging for mushrooms for a decade. I take photographs of any that I see in the field, and he tells me how edible they are.

I was camping years ago, and one morning the field I was camping in was almost white with field mushrooms. Never seen anything like it. Took four huge bags of mushrooms home.
 
Giant puffball cut into thick slices and shallow fried in butter is one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten.

I am less convinced by chicken of the woods, but I think that may be harder to prepare.
 
cubastreet said:
In recent times I've become interested in fungi. Compared with plants and animals relatively little is known about them, but they are very much an essential part of life on earth.

Apart from wanting to establish edible mushrooms on my property, I want to look into using fungi to solve a local problem: wine marc - the waste from the wine industry. I want to see if it's viable to break the marc down with fungi then ferment it for distillation into ethanol for fuel.

I'm also interested in learning more about the symbiotic relationship some fungi have with plants. I find it quite fascinating, but a lot of the writing comes from permaculture types and isn't scientific. There seems to be some fascinating knowledge punctuated by huge gaps and assumptions.

Do you have any mushroom knowledge you'd like to share, or can you point me in the direction of some good books or websites?
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Not fungi specifically but I know about marc disposal in wine areas and food waste disposal in general. The traditional route for marc, depending on area, is ploughing into the fields as compost (Loire), pigs (anywhere) or further fermentation and distillation into grappa (Italy). It has low energy content for use in most animal feed, as it's basically depleted plant material with a high water content.

Food waste is either added to dry animal feed it it has a high energy content, e.g. bakery waste, or fats and oils, or sent to anaerobic digestion if unfit. Again high energy content is required to make the transport worthwhile. This latter generates methane, but it's a large scale process.
 
cubastreet said:
............. I want to look into using fungi to solve a local problem: wine marc - the waste from the wine industry. I want to see if it's viable to break the marc down with fungi then ferment it for distillation into ethanol for fuel.
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See this old but informative article entitled "The Pomace Predicament", pomace being another word for marc afaict.
 
DimitryZ said:
We have seeded several beds in our shady small backyard with desirable species - king bolettes, chanterelles, etc. Alas, only winecapa came up - but this was a low harvest year in Massachusetts - no mushrooms in the woods we walk the dogs at all. In a good year, we would easily come back with dinner, without much trying. Still it was great to get two or three dinners from our earth.

I am Russian, so mushroom picking is in my blood. But my wife also enjoys it - and has become quite good at avoiding the poisonous ones. Dogs love it too - and readily eat cooked mushrooms.
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I believed that commercial growing these mushrooms was nigh on impossible. They are symbionts and require mycorrhizal association with trees. Hence finding them growing in woods. I’d be very interested in reading how you can do it. Any sources?
 
DimitryZ said:
Any mushroom can be cultivated in the right soil. All mushrooms for sale commercially are "cultivated."
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Neither comment is true.
If you replace "soil", by "medium", that would be true. But commercially is another thing entirely - not least truffles.
In the UK, there are areas where commercial pickers have trashed the countryside, reputedly, the pickers are very largely eastern-Europeans, who have a far far greater tradition of collecting edible mushrooms than do the natives here.

I live only a mile or so from the "farm" (it can't cover much more than 2 acres) that supplies many of the fungi in supermarkets, apart from the usual cultivated species. I haven't been in to "The Mushroom Shop" for quite a while but I'd be surprised if they still grow chestnut mushrooms as it will be too competitive. Not sure how many species they grow, but when I have been in, there have always been several in the chill cabinet.

I find most of the commercially grown ones taste very similar indeed. For me, the exceptions are oyster mushrooms, which go especially well with fish and although they don't taste of oysters, they somehow hint at that flavour. The other I can't remember the name of - you buy them as clusters of tall slender stems, almost entirely glassy/white - they have a very subtle citrus flavour.
 
ralphj said:
See this old but informative article entitled "The Pomace Predicament", pomace being another word for marc afaict.
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Pomace from cider used to be salted to stop it going off and sold to chutney makers, who milled it to a paste, seeds stalks and all, and threw it in the mix. I know that this was current as recently as the midx 90s.
 
These days, chances are you'll find some of these (Macrolepiota procera). Pick them up and fry them like a piece of meat, or even with breadcrumbs. This season I've found some beautiful specimens, for two meals oh they were delicious. The absolute best mushroom IMO, but leave alone the old ones preferably.

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There's a gentleman called Marlow from Wild Food UK who makes some very informative uTube videos on identifying 'shrooms and other edibles you can find in the British countryside. Although I live in very rural Suffolk, with some ancient woods hereabouts, there seem to be very few fungi around, and the odd ones I've managed to identify have been poisonous. We cut down a large ash tree in our front garden about five years ago, and the decaying roots are now throwing up a vast array of mushrooms on the front lawn. They all appear to be either inedible or poisonous of course...

Last year I dug a hole to take SWMBO's washing line post, and within a month or so some lovely white mushrooms appeared on the spoil heap. I managed to get a clear identification of these - they were Destroying Angel. Not nice. We do, however, have fairy ring champignons growing in the back lawn. Not good news for the lawn of course, but at least, with the help of Mr Marlow, I'm confident enough to risk eating the little blighters. I've gathered a fair crop of field mushrooms this year, but they're either full of maggots or very gritty.
 
DimitryZ said:
Worms and slugs are not a problem, they are our friends.

If you find a great mushroom patch and they are pristine, you should be concerned. These could be "false" mushrooms - identical to the eye, but killers in your stomach. My granny's "cut and taste, spit if bitter" test is not precise and itself dangerous.

Here our little friends come to help. If you see slug marks, or worm trails in the stem, you are guaranteed safe. The little guys evolved over millennia to KNOW if their food is safe to eat. They do not make mistakes, unlike the young species, like us.
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Dangerously wrong!! You absolutely cannot take a lack of maggots and slugs as proof that a fungi is toxic. You must be sure of identification before eating any fungi you have picked and the presence or absence of maggots is neither here nor there. Unfortunately they are especially fond of boletus types which we also like! Beware that not all boletus types are edible...
Neither are all Amanitas toxic. The big two fatal fungi are Amanita Phalloides, the Death Cap, and Amanita Virosa, Destroying Angel, and you must be super sure to be able to identify these for obvious reasons!
In the UK Amanita Rubescens is fairly common and makes good eating but it looks almost identical to the Amanita Pantharina, The Panther Cap, which is toxic.... However, there is an easy way to tell the safe ones! Amanita Rubescens common name is The Blusher. Break off a small piece of the cap and the flesh of the broken bits should turn a red wine colour over a minute or so:) They also look rather lake a faded Fly Agaric so be sure to do this test.
In southern Europe there is Amanita Caesarea which look like a Fly Agaric with no spots and are very good eating. I've not tried them as I've only foraged in the UK.
 
We picked some large white field mushrooms on holiday.
They bruised yellow which seemed odd.
I consulted the net.
Inedible and a period on the loo would have resulted.
Fried one out of interest and it smelled strongly of urine.
Visually they were inseparable from the edible type.
 
As Arkless says, just because they are nibbled by maggots, worms or slugs etc is not a sign that they are safe to eat. Many invertebrates have evolved to feed on poisonous fungi with no problems.
 
I've always been fascinated by the way Death Caps kill you. The process includes liquefaction of your liver, and a nice phase where you start to feel better, raising your hopes. And then you die. Nice.
 
Nero said:
I've always been fascinated by the way Death Caps kill you. The process includes liquefaction of your liver, and a nice phase where you start to feel better, raising your hopes. And then you die. Nice.
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And there's no antidote. Destroying Angel does the same.
The concentration of toxin can vary hugely depending on age, the recent weather, the soil etc etc but half a cap of a Death Cap has been known to be fatal!
 
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