Mushroom ID please

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Mushroom ID please
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dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46188
Location: yes

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 17 7:09 pm Post subject:
ps " someone has cut them with a knife so they must be edible " isnt a reliable safety test either

buzzy

Joined: 04 Jan 2011
Posts: 3708
Location: In a small wood on the edge of the Huntingdonshire Wolds

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 17 2:14 pm Post subject:

dpack wrote:

ps " someone has cut them with a knife so they must be edible " isnt a reliable safety test either

Exactly. I have heard of people who collect everything that looks big enough to eat, take them home and show them to an 'expert' and only eat the ones given the OK, and chuck the rest.

Henry

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46188
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 17 9:15 pm Post subject:

a minibus of unskilled pickers and a choice master at the end of the day is normal practice with the less ethical side of the commercial picking trade

some pickers get paid by weight of edible ones which does encourage learning and some measure of ethics if they stay on.
some are paid by total weight and some by the day ( and are not taken again if they get nowt in the basket first time ) which are messy as both options lead to a huge amount of bycatch.

with a shroom i am not certain about as food or even if i am pretty certain it isn't food but i'm curious as to what it is i will take one or two to identify otherwise it is either half for the pot and half for spores or look and decide not food and leave them be.

trawl everything and sort it later is destructive

on one of my picks half gone would be a good test of edibility unless there are 2 shrooms and 2 stumps

sgt.colon

Joined: 27 Jul 2009
Posts: 7380
Location: Just south of north.

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 17 9:00 am Post subject:

dpack wrote:

look and decide not food and leave them be

That's the option I take with all the shrooms I see. I'm far too scared to take the risk.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46188
Location: yes

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 17 10:20 am Post subject:

a far better attitude than those who have a book of a 100 edible shrooms and little idea of the subtleties that can be involved in a positive id

that said there are some that are unmistakeable so long as the shape, colour, small, location etc match the description all will be fine.

even within one patch at one time quite a few species will show considerable diversity of colour , shape etc etc .

one of the better ways to start shrooming is learning the food only once species and avoid them individually or if they are part of a group with some edible and some not shun the whole group until you are much more expert.

groups such as tree located ones or the boletes only have a few to avoid, once those are known so a specific id isnt so important for picking the edible sorts.

some groups are difficult, such as the 'cybes, as the differences between dinner and dead or wishing you were dead are very subtle.

sgt.colon

Joined: 27 Jul 2009
Posts: 7380
Location: Just south of north.

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 17 10:39 am Post subject:
So are there some that cannot be mixed up with anything else DPack? I know a giant puffball and that's really about all I would risk.

Slim

Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 6612
Location: New England (In the US of A)

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 17 11:15 am Post subject:
chicken of the woods, and morels are other good ones to start with

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15949

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 17 5:45 am Post subject:
I understand some people can get bad reactions from chicken of the woods though. About 10% of people get stomach upsets, or so I have read.

NorthernMonkeyGirl

Joined: 10 Apr 2011
Posts: 4627
Location: Peeping over your shoulder

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 17 7:14 am Post subject:
I trust myself with jelly ear/wood ear and giant puffball. That's about it!

sgt.colon

Joined: 27 Jul 2009
Posts: 7380
Location: Just south of north.

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 17 8:17 am Post subject:
Thanks all. NMG, I've never even heard of those.

buzzy

Joined: 04 Jan 2011
Posts: 3708
Location: In a small wood on the edge of the Huntingdonshire Wolds

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 17 9:10 am Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

I understand some people can get bad reactions from chicken of the woods though. About 10% of people get stomach upsets, or so I have read.

I have heard that some people find Chicken-of-the-Woods tasty, but the only time I was given it, it tasted of the sauce it was cooked in, though admittedly the texture was exactly like chicken.

Henry

Slim

Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 6612
Location: New England (In the US of A)

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 17 11:07 am Post subject:

COTW reminds me of lobster, more so than lobster mushrooms.

Giant puffballs are poo-pooed by some, but Mrs. Slim made an absolutely delicious puffball parmigiana a couple years ago.

Any fungus can cause stomach upset (it seems) and I wonder how often the issues are undercooking (and therefore insufficient breakdown of the chitin cell walls), food poisoning (insufficient sanitation), or the species that the fungus grew on (with COTW it's typically said to avoid any that are growing on conifers)

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46188
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 17 6:51 pm Post subject:

st george's are fairly easy to id .

spring, grassland, pale buff, plump, with a indented edge to the cap. nowt else that is nasty fits the bill.

blewits, the lilac stem is unique among shrooms in their habitat and autumn timing

velvet shanks , purple stem, orange cap, frosty weather, grow on dead or dying trees. again nowt to confuse them with.

all delicious.

with the 'cybes dinner or dead can require a microscope ( which is not standard kitchen equipment

)
there are some really nice agarics but a heavy shower can make at least one nasty pass for a delicious one
etc etc .

the better foraging guides have a "can be mistaken for " list which is handy .

something that has killed folk is that an edible shroom in one place can look like a once only one on a different continent . iirc several chinese folk have come a cropper by picking a familiar shroom that wasn't what they thought it was having moved to europe.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15949

Posted: Thu Sep 14, 17 6:59 am Post subject:
Sgt. Colon, jelly ear used to be called Jews ear, but in these more politically correct times has changed its name. You may have heard it called by the old name. I cooked a stuffed giant puffball once, not a large one. It was too strong a mushroomy flavour for me, but then I do have very delicate taste buds.

sgt.colon

Joined: 27 Jul 2009
Posts: 7380
Location: Just south of north.

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 17 10:27 am Post subject:
Some more shrooms for ID please, if anyone knows. We also had some of these growing in our back garden. Thanks.

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