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Mushroom question

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Ha Ha Marwan good question, If you were a mushroom hunter you would understand.
For me "collecting" is not a suitable word to describe the amazingly joyous occasion when you happen upon a prize catch like a 2lb cep
 
Foxy out with the dog i find lots of different mushrooms/fungi....can i send you pictures so you can help me identify what is edible and what is not?? I crave for wild mushroom risotto:p :p
 
Marwan, it's so fun and you must try it if you have possibility (but check before eating!!!).
In italian we say we "go for mushrooms" (andare per funghi) but indeed hunting is an appropriate word.
It's just like spearfishing for octopus or corvina or skorpion fish: shooting them is so easy, but the difficulty is to find them and and the fun is while you dive around looking for them (or walk, in the case of mushrooms). And the joy is when you cook them!
Scuba vs.freediving? My uncle has two very skilled dogs specialized in finding truffles. Just like two scuba tanks in this sense...
 
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Spaghetti i love hunting for wild food and often take my children out to the forest with my dog to find wild stawberrys,rasberrys,hazelnuts,sweet chestnuts,damsons and cherrys just to name a few.

Food tastes so much better when you gather it yourself.
 
Marwan- Very good question about the definition of hunting.

Although commonly used to describe the pursuit of fish, deer, pigs, etc. This term can also be used to indicated the search for any object.

[ame=http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&safe=off&defl=en&q=define:hunting&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title]define:hunting - Google Search[/ame]

I would stay away from the Amanita Muscaria as some parts contain poison. Prepared in the correct way (e.g. throught a slave's bladder it is apparetly safe. unfortunately we are suffering a slave shortage in this part of the world at the moment.

The most common variety available here (42 degrees latitude) with 'medicinal' properties turn blue within a few minutes of having their flesh squeezed. Unfortunately they have common side effects like the belief you can fly. Although if taken in the correct (low) dosage can have quite a subtle and therapeutic effect. Of course completely illegal here- But then so is smashing in the headlights of people who try to steal petrol from me and I'd do that in a heartbeat!
 
Foxy out with the dog i find lots of different mushrooms/fungi....can i send you pictures so you can help me identify what is edible and what is not?? I crave for wild mushroom risotto:p :p

John that would be quite a responsibility for me, buy this book I think it is the best & easiest to use book available.
[ame=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edible-Mushrooms-Collins-How-ID/dp/000219984X]Amazon.co.uk: Edible Mushrooms (Collins How to ID): Books: Patrick Harding,Tony Lyon,Robert Gillmor,Gill Tomblin,Nicholas Hammond[/ame]
 
And if your not sure if a mushroom is edible by looking at it in the book, try taking a small amount and if you start feeling kinda funky and see rays of sunlight in phsycodelic colours and start saying things like groooovy dude the water feels like silk through my fingers chances are you probably dont want to use that one in a salad rofl .
In all seriousness though Im no mushroom expert and probably wont go round picking them off for salad, natures toxins are not something to mess with if you dont have proper knowledge of them... Allthough I do think Ill get that book I allways seem to find mushrooms everywhere I go.
 
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In my misspent youth I watched a guy swill down a cup of tea made with the odd mushroom and after about 15-20 minutes he fell on the floor and announced that he thought he was paralyzed.
Now at the time this in itself didn’t seem strange, but as the said guy was lead on the floor in such a way that the point of his nose was directly touching the floor and he stayed there motionless for the best part of 2 hours.
As for me well after the first hour had past it all got to much and the funny side of the situation came shining through and for the next 30 minutes or so it was all I could do just to breath.
And the moral of the story is-
Buy Foxfish’s book or be prepared to get laughed at and end up with real sore nose.:)
 
Well it is that time of year again & what a fantastic season so far.
I guess one has to be positive though this atrocious English weather & what better way than hunting fungi.
We have been collecting since mid august but today showed up some very interesting specimens, death-cap city in one area! So many in fact they make you wonder if someone offical should be informed?
On a more edible theme, we managed to find four nice cauliflower fungi, defiantly one of my favorites, & several lb of chanterelle.
 
Does nobody care for the smurfs?!?!?! Where will they live if we keep eating mushrooms????
 
Went with Fabio at the weekend - found alot of different species and picked just a few (some large flat 'parasols' that Mart pointed out - cheers Mart !)
Found some cepe / porcini but Fabio said they weren't the boletus edulis but rather boletus badius... and not in great shape (wet/insect holes) so we left them...
Got some picks of the other types we found - Fabio did name them all (except the 'jelly ear' one which he hadn't seen before - maybe not common in Italy ?)
Cheers
Ed
 
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boletus badius... that is a "bay bolete", interesting eating a mushroom that turns bright blue when you cut the flesh!
 
I suggest using Carlos Castaneda's writing as reference books for those interested in consuming mushrooms
 
Along with the fact that carlos died of liver cancer - among other things...
 
Much respect to those who have the knowledge and confidence to get their mushrooms from somewhere other that the super market.

On relatively unrelated but fascinating matters:

Ummm, sounds like his liver was pretty stressed. You don't suppose that had anything to do with all the "natural" chemicals he claims to have ingested?

And then there are those "other things." The imagination is going into high gear. Care to illuminate us?

Connor

Connor
 
Well, just going off the books, for starters, he ingested Datura root - aka 'Jimson weed' - and an unknown concoction probably containing one or another of the psilocybe varieties, not to mention Peyote. We can certainly surmise that he did these things more than a few times. According to an Interview with Carlos, well-before his death, his liver was "in shreds". From what he claimed to have taken certainly Datura root would be at the top of the heap of liver culprits. Muscaria would be another one - but I've never seen an account of him using it.

Theres a lot of controversy about Carlos' passing - but he was supposed to have been in very poor health across the board - diabetes and liver cancer. There are also accounts of his living a pretty indulgent lifestyle in the latter part of his life. I don't want to get into all of that but just to say I thought his first three books were beautiful - with Journey to Ixlan being probably the finest thing he wrote. From there on I think he got caught in the window dressing - which is not to take away from the beauty and real value of those first three. Among the things i appreciated in his writing was his willingness to be the idiot.

On the subject of mushrooms - Its not so bad finding the good ones once you know your stuff - through there are accounts of people making some thoroughly serious mistakes. Personally I'll stick with the unmistakable morel mushrooms that grow around here.
 
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On a more serious note, I would like to observe that Russians are very fond of collecting mushrooms in forests around cities and then eating them - roasted or pickled (with vodka sometimes). Most of this mushroom collecting army that numbers millions must be real pros cause only a few dozens are hospitalized with poisoning.
 
OK I hunt fish & fungi, can any one tell me if I can eat these two little beauties?
The main season is just starting over here in Guernsey, both these mushrooms appear in numbers at the beginning of the season but what are they?


if your interested in hunting fungi etc then you may be interested in this forum, it is full on useful info..
Bushcraft UK - Home
 
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Continued from the 'Chest Burn' thread:

Once when I was visiting a friend of mine at a Chiropractic school in Georgia a friend of hers took me Mushroom hunting.

He was all worshipful about P.Cubensis, which, as you may know, grows on Cow Poop. He said they were angels.

So, not all that excited about going deep into redneck country to look for illegal drugs off I went. The roads got smaller and smaller and pretty soon we were tooling down dusty little two-tracks surrounded by lush Georgia country side.

By and by the spaced out hippy/jr. chiropractr/shroom-head says "we're almost there!" and we come upon a real live genuine deep south chain gang supervised by an equally authentic Sheriff with a cowboy-style sheriff hat, mirrored aviator sunglasses and a lovely mossberg 12 guage pump propped against his hip in the traditional manner.

Up till then I'd only ever seen one in movies.

"Not Long now!" declared my spaced captor, ostensibly oblivious to the to-my-delicate-northern-sensibilities-genuinely-alarming symbols of omnipresent southern justice that I'd just seen my reflection in. 'AND..' I thought 'on the way back we get to drive by with contraband on board..'

Well, true to his word we pulled up in a gnarly looking stand of mossy trees on the edge of a swamp just a clean shot from the chain gang. I was immediately impressed by the sound of about a million flies. That and the smell quickly brought me to the inevitable visual conclusion of a massively bloated dead cow about 60 feet away. Great.

Directly ahead, atop a small hill in a pasture, was an actual live cow. It put its head down, glared at us, let out what seemed like a really loud mooo, and walked away. I tried to explain to my host that the omens were..uh...marginal, but the angel safarist was unrelenting in his quest for a fruitful pile of cow shit. Meanwhile I could feel the omniscient gaze behind those shades a mere 400 yards away - probing the rattled depths of my soul...

By and by we found zero mushrooms - evidently a first - and left. My spirit guide, naturally, had a jar of P.Cubensis - preserved in Honey, with him at all times and offered me some. Fortunately this revelation took place after we passed the chain gang and God of Southern Justice. Nearly overdosed on incredulity already, and Given the enlightening environmental ambiance, I managed to decline - forgoing the macho temptation of a willful journey into hell.
 
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