
Last supper: Like the pufferfish, wild mushrooms are for culinary daredevils - Petiver
https://aeon.co/essays/mushroom-foraging-is-deadly-why-am-i-doing-it
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InclinedPlane
Pure silliness. Wild mushrooms aren't for culinary daredevils, that's about
the most extreme mischaracterization imaginable.

It is very, very easy to avoid being poisoned by wild mushrooms. There are
many mushrooms that are very difficult to be confused with poisonous
varieties, so you concentrate on those. You learn what you need to learn, you
go out with people who are experienced, you make use of the resources
available (which are significant), and you don't act dumb. Comparing a
mushroom you found to a picture in a book and asking yourself whether it sort
of looks similar? Is that how mushroom identification works? No, it really
isn't. If that's the level you're at, then don't eat that mushroom. But it
turns out, if you follow the guidelines, learn from people who are
knowledgeable, and play it safe, mushroom hunting can be an incredibly fun and
rewarding experience. Most of the difficult to identify wild fungi are random
"little brown mushrooms" or such-like that are not particularly good to eat
regardless, so not only is the risk lower with sticking to easily identified
varieties, the reward is higher as well.

To categorize those who do it as thrill seekers or daredevils is to completely
misperceive what's going on, pretty much in its entirety. There might be some
folks out there who fit that characterization, but they are not the majority.

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dccoolgai
| make use of the resources available (which are significant)

Like what? Been toying with the idea of getting into this hobby, but reddit
/r/mycology hasn't really revealed much. Where does one start?

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InclinedPlane
Start with the definitive reference: [http://www.amazon.com/Mushrooms-
Demystified-David-Arora/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Mushrooms-Demystified-
David-Arora/dp/0898151694/)

Take a class or find a friend who is already knowledgeable. Or you could try
getting in touch with culinary foraging folks. You'll quickly find out that
there are only a few species of mushrooms that people tend to forage for, and
there are fairly easy ways to tell the good ones apart from the potentially
dangerous ones. There are also only a handful of truly deadly mushrooms, once
you have familiarity with both sets it becomes a lot easier to trust eating
something you find out in the woods. Generally, avoid the "stereotypical"
looking mushrooms (the "little brown mushrooms" and toadstools), and stick to
the most distinctive and easiest to avoid confusing edible fungi.

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mordechai9000
I second your recommendation for the book. It's a joy to read, whether you are
foraging for edibles or simply interested in learning about mushrooms.

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dekhn
I live in an area with a huge mushroom community and I don't know anybody in
that community who collects wild mushrooms for the thrill of eating risking
food.

In that community (northern CA) the majority of people who get sick and die
are children of eastern european immigrants: the families migrate here and
collect mushrooms that look like the safe ones in their home countries.
However, that mushroom often ends up being amanita phalloides. In most cases,
it's not adults who die of kidney failure, but children. Adults tend to get
sick for a little while and recover.

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ianlevesque
It sounds like there's a great opportunity here for test strips to identify
poisonous mushrooms, at least the most commonly encountered varieties.

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Alex3917
Not really. In the 50+ year history of amateur mycology clubs in the U.S.,
there hasn't been a single recorded death from mushroom poisoning.

By far the biggest risk involved with foraging mushrooms is tick-related
illness, including, but not limited to, lyme disease. Followed by getting in a
car/bike accident on the way to forage, getting lost in the woods, falling
injuring yourself, getting shot by hunters or pot farmers, or getting trampled
by a cow -- all of which are orders of magnitudes more likely than
accidentally poisoning yourself.

And fwiw, there actually are chemicals that you can use to identify some
mushrooms, but the government has banned them -- one for being a date rape
drug, the other because it's a precursor to meth.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
> In the 50+ year history of amateur mycology clubs in the U.S., there hasn't
> been a single recorded death from mushroom poisoning.

Are you doing some kind of special counting because even cursory googling
suggests that this is not the case.

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Alex3917
> Are you doing some kind of special counting because even cursory googling
> suggests that this is not the case.

What I meant was there have been no deaths among members of amateur
mycological associations. There have obviously been deaths among the general
public, but that's not what I'm talking about.

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andreapaiola
What a dumb article. If you're dumb you eat mushrooms that you don't know.

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mattnumbe
This article doesn't talk enough about spore patterns as an identifier. We
usually identify by pattern then return to the same spot after the next rain.
Going with someone that's experienced is vital.

