Don't eat the deadly corts.

[urbpan]

Believe it or not, only two of you have emailed or commented to me about the Horse Whisperer and his family succombing to mushroom poisoning.  (I know some of you were hoping it was the Dog Whisperer.)  Hopefully after some dialysis and bed rest they'll get better and their kidneys will work again some day.  The lesson to be learned here is not "never eat wild mushrooms," but rather that mushroom poisoning is caused by wishful thinking.

Apparently the family thought they were collecting and eating Chanterelles (genera Cantharellus and Craterellus), a group of highly praised edible mushrooms.  These are so popular that they are one of very few edible mushroom types known by name by most Americans (a notoriously mycophobic nationality) and are often found in supermarkets and restaurants.  They are distinguished by being trumpet or vase shaped, and by having spore-bearing ridges that run from the cap most of the way down the stem.  Judging by the warnings in the mushroom field guides, a great many people pick a great many mushrooms under the misapprehension that they are chantarelles.  Because, hey, how great would that be, to find chanterelles just growing in the forest?

Unfortunately, ordinary umbrella-shaped mushrooms can be mistaken for chanterelles as they age.  Especially if there has been a lot of rain, mushrooms fold upward as they get older.  The underside absorbs more water than the top, so the gills swell and rise, giving a cuplike appearance to the cap, and an eager collector could easily mistake the disdended gills for the long ridges of the chanterelle.  The mushrooms that Nicolas Evan's and his kin ate were Corntinarius speciosissimus,  one of at least four corts that has earned the common name "deadly webcap." 

Here are a couple of pictures by cottonmanifesto  as examples. 




Black chanterelle or "horn of plenty" Craterellus cornucopoides


A typical gilled mushroom turning concave with age and moisture.

And this picture stolen from wikipedia really muddies the waters.  Would you eat these?

Comments

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

i'd never eat a mushroom i found in the forest, unless i was starving and had several hours of mushroom-schooling stored in my brain.

i hope they recover fully. distressing that such an innocent activity can have such horrible results.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

you can live a long time on nutritious pine needles and random berries i DO know about ... :)

just don't like, eat the poison ivy.


'''Black chanterelle or "horn of plenty" Craterellus cornucopoides''' -- now these i'm pretty sure i see growing all over the place. cute things, but you know, i'm not even going to think about touching them.

the orange type of chanterelle i've seen pictures of, well, has a completely different look than the pictures in that web story.

apparently, it's very common for europeans to come to the USA (or another part of the world even), and find "mushrooms exactly like home that we eat every summer"... except, well, they're not. liver failure ensues. fun sized mushroom poisoning.

so, for me, it's a hobby of looking, and being aware, and appreciating, not eating.

#

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

that's what i was thinking. i can catch some small animals, make dirt tea, and chew pine needles.

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

This is one of the situations in which having a bit of patience and taking a spore print would have saved a lot of trouble.

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

I just found out not a week ago that one of my coworkers is actualy a bit of a mushroom fanatic. Turns out she used to go picking with her dad and just the week before last saw a bunch of tasty ones on the road we work on. She confessed to running back to her truck with an armful then having to call her dad to tell him about her score.

We had no idea she knew this stuff. I'm jealous. How DOES one learn about this? I can only imagine the culinary possibilties that could result from my morning walks with my dog! Tonight's beef stroganoff would've been marvelous with some wild mushrooms if I had any idea what was edible.

But until recently, I knew nobody knowledgable in this realm. First your puffball mushroom post, then her last week.

Teach me oh wise ones. *bows*

[buboniclou.livejournal.com]

The first ones look like they'd kill me just looking at them, nevermind eating. I guess appearances are deceiving.

[anais2.livejournal.com]

I agree. I guess our instincts are off, lol.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

http://www.bostonmycologicalclub.org/

They have forays all over the state. The best thing to do is to join, get to a meeting (harvard square) if you can, but if not, at least to forays that are convenient to you, and ask a ton of questions! They're all lovable kooks from what I can tell.

Also, if you can make it to Lincoln, I'm teaching two classes.

And if you can make it down to the Boston area, I'm leading a (free) urban nature walk focused on mushrooms September 14th. Don't know when yet, but if you join my mailing list you'll be among the first to know:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/urbannaturewalk/

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

That's one of the the amazing things about them: some of the ugliest ones are the best to eat (morels, black trumpets, wood ear, old man of the woods) and some of the prettiest ones are not (destroying angel, the sickener).

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

Do you do these classes semi regularly during the year? or is it a one time thing? My weekends this month are toast, but I work in Lexington, live in Groton. Lincoln isn't far from me.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

There's one in September and one in October. They run programs of various kinds throughout the year, but they only hire me for mushroom classes in the fall.

[(Anonymous)]

Poor Monty Roberts. I always wonder how he ended up being dubbed "the horse whisperer..." He's actually, "the man who listens to horses."

I would

[(Anonymous)]

I would eat the first and last ones. They are the ones you can eat. And here in Sweden they are wild in the woods, and right now it's picking time for them =).