Shrooms for begineers

[dwardo]

Hey all

I have been out a lot lately and more and more i notice the vast ammounts of shrooms near where i live. The problem is i have never liked mushrooms but then i have only ever tried the slimey small off looking ones from supermarkets and usually badly cooked.
I have notice a few on here that are massive white ones (giant puff balls ?) now this looks like a different bag all together :Wow:
The cooking method was lightly fried with egg and bacon and ooo they looked lovely.
The point i am trying to make is i would love to try one like this but i have no clue about picking and the general rule i hear is if in doubt then dont !
What i am after is an easy to spot/possitively identify mushy for this time of year that is a nice eater for the newby pallet.
I know that it can be hard to spot certain types but surely there is a beginners mushroom to start with?
The thing i want to avoid is reading through the massive ammounts of mushroom info only to find i still cant stand the things lol

Hope you lot can help introduce me to the world of mushies

 

[xylaria]

The only thing you could possibly mistake a giant puffball for is sheep and they dont kill you, or maybe they do.

I have picked a gaint puffball today Haven't got any bacon Do Think I will be OK?

Seriously though the browny yellowy bit in the middle is generally not eaten. The wood lice and slugs are up individaul taste. They dont taste like shop mushrooms. I have eaten the wild version of shop shrooms and they dont taste like shop shrooms either.

Polypores are good for beginers I cant think of one that kill you, but they might be like sheep :yikes: Grifola frondosa and chicken of the woods aren't real advailble this end of the season but they really good eating, Taste chicken but they normally bigger and dont squalk when you retrieve them from a tree. Theres beefsteak steak fungus which looks a dead sheep stuck to tree. Requires the correct cooking or it tastes of tannin

Gaint puffball is never normally seen quite this late. I have heard of field between nantwich and chester thats has loads in but that was four weeks ago. The guy who told me drives a bus and swears his eyesight is good enough to tell that weren't sheep.

 

[dwardo]

I dunno sometimes those sheep may look dosile but its that blank look they have :borgsmile i rekon their upto no good

If there is nothing else that these giant puffballs look like besides sheep then ill give them a go

Can anyone suggest any others that are reasonably idoit proof ?

 

[chickenofthewoods]

Seriously though the browny yellowy bit in the middle is generally not eaten. The wood lice and slugs are up individaul taste.

Are we talking sheep or giant puffball here?

But seriously. I always understood that they were only worth eating if still white all the way through. Not that we're lucky enough to have had any here. The time of year is the kicker - it's pretty late on, and although it varies country-wide some things are supposed to be gone by now. That said, I have had two batches of Shaggy Parasols in the last week or so which I cooked up like this (originally posted on another forum):
Quite unexpectedly we came across these two lovely fresh shaggy parasols yesterday.

Since it's so late in the season this was a lovely surprise and I wanted to do something a bit more creative than soup and settled on parasols in a light crispy tempura style batter, served with a dipping sauce.

Clean the parasols by brushing lightly over the cap (don't wash unless absolutely necessary) then twist the stalks free and discard. Slice the caps
into strips or cubes handling carefully as the gills are quite delicate.

Then make up your batter mix - I devised this one:
Batter mix
100g plain flour
100g cornflour
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 egg, beaten
half tsp sugar
half tsp salt
150ml ice cold water

Sift the two flours together, over the sliced parasol mushroom to coat it. Make sure that the pieces are evenly covered.

Remove the pieces of the mushroom from the flour mix. Add the salt, cream of tartar and sugar and gently mix all into the beaten egg.

As it thickens, add the water to make a batter mix with the consistency of single cream.

Liberally coat the parasol slices in batter, making sure they are completely covered.

Heat the oil until just smoking, and using a slotted spoon take each parasol slice and place it in the batter. Do them in small batches, cooking till a light golden brown and allowing each batch to drain after cooking.

Serve with a dipping sauce of your choice - I like spicy, garlicky stuff, so made one with these:

Dipping sauce
1" fresh ginger root
half a fresh red chilli
3 cloves of garlic
tbsp balsamic vinegar
tbsp cider vinegar
tbsp clear honey
couple of dashes of tabasco (optional)

Peel and finely chop the ginger.

Crush the whole garlic cloves under the side of a heavy cooks knife, then peel and chop finely. Place both in a pestle and mortar and pound to a paste.

De-seed the chilli, and thinly slice - then chop finely.

Stir the two vinegars and the honey into the garlic/ginger paste, then sprinkle in the finely chopped chilli.

Check for taste and add some tabasco if you like it.

Serve with tempura veggies or mushrooms.

Delicious!

The batter comes up nice and crispy and not too heavy and doesn't hold too much much oil. The parasols have a nice subtle taste, so if you preferred you could have a sauce with a little less 'ooomph' than mine.

A nice veggie feast for one, or a starter for two to share.

And This:
Found another crop of these yesterday, so today's recipe is shaggy parasol in cream sauce. No quantities as such - it's all done by eye and depends on how many you forage!

3 Shaggy parasol caps, cut into rough cubes
Generous knob of butter
1 clove garlic, crushed or chopped finely
Single cream (enough to make a good covering sauce)
Arrowroot to thicken

Clean your parasol caps by lightly brushing away any debris, then chop into rough cubes.

Put the butter into a pan and melt over a low heat.

Add the garlic and cook gently for a minute or so.

Add the chopped parasols, stir and cook until they are visibly soft and a little reduced.

Pour in enough single cream to make a good covering sauce.

Add approx. 1 tsp of arrowroot to thicken the cream sauce. Stir.

Prepare 2 slices of wholemeal toast & butter them lightly.

Place the toast slices on a serving plate and pour the parasol cream mixture over them.

Enjoy.

They taste good, and are hard to mistake for anything else. Look up fungi on Roger Phillip's website for good clear id. pics, edible fungi species and recipes:

http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/

Blewits are one species which is about at this time of year, Clitocybe nuda (the Wood Blewit) is one you could try looking for.

 

[rich59]

I am glad you know that fungus well enough to identify it as edible. When I looked at your picture I thought it looked like an amanita! How do you +vely know it isn't an amanita?

 

[chickenofthewoods]

"The shaggy parasol is a large and conspicuous agaric, with thick brown scales and protuberances on its fleshy white cap. The gills and spore print are both white in colour. Its stipe is slender, coloured uniformly and bears no patterns. It is fleshy and when any tissue is cut, a reddish, or maroon discoloration occurs and a pungent odour is evolved. At its base, the stipe is very bulbous. As they mature, the egg-shaped caps become wider and flatter.

The stem of M. rhacodes grows to 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) tall. The cap grows to 3 to 8 inches (7.5 to 20 centimeters) across. The stipe has a diameter of 1 to 2 centimetres."

Borrowed that from Wikipedia as it's pretty much to the point.

A Shaggy Parasol is an Agaric. (Macrolepiota rhacodes). It doesn't have a volva (egg like sac around the base from which the fungus grew) which is characteristic of Amanitas. It is hard to confuse it with anything much, I wonder, which amanita are you suggesting it looks like?

 

[gregorach]

I am glad you know that fungus well enough to identify it as edible. When I looked at your picture I thought it looked like an amanita! How do you +vely know it isn't an amanita?

The size and shape of the cap, along with it's shaggy appearance, makes it fairly easy - once you know what you're looking at!. However, if you haven't seen and positively identified it before, I suppose you might mistake one of the nasties for it. None of the dangerous amanitas grow as large as the Shaggy Parasol - this is why it's generally recommended to avoid small parasols unless you're very sure of your ID.

That's the problem with shrooms - you need to see good positive IDs, in the flesh, before you can learn to recognise them easily yourself. I really wouldn't want to advise anybody to go off picking shrooms purely on the basis of advice over the 'net.

Having said that, the boletes are easily recongisable from their distinctive pores, and are generally fairly safe...

Really, by far the best way is to find someone who knows what they're doing, and learn from them.

 

[spamel]

Parasols are very easy to ID, they were my first after puffballs and boletes. Basically, the stem is hollow, and it has a sort of snake skin look to it. The cap is very broad in mature specimens, and there is a "Nipple" in the middle, a small bump which is where the stem is connected. The gills are crowded, or very close together, and the top is shaggy, as the name suggests!!

I think the top feels a it like fine dry felt, not too bad a mushroom, when I find them whilst I'm bushcrafting I tend to get rid of the stem which is very woody, and tear the cap up and throw it in a stew! Nothing fancy, puffballs are pretty much the same, chop em up and bung em in a stew!!

 

[chickenofthewoods]

That's the problem with shrooms - you need to see good positive IDs, in the flesh, before you can learn to recognise them easily yourself. I really wouldn't want to advise anybody to go off picking shrooms purely on the basis of advice over the 'net.

Even different authors can give confusing or conflicting information, it's not just the net you have to watch out for. I'd say get on a fungi course for starters, but you've really missed the boat a bit for that this year unless you can find someone well versed and trustworthy to show you personally what's still about now.

 

[dwardo]

Cheers all

If the season is about done i may wait till next year then start stalking some of you fungi experts for some pointers.
There are plenty of other things that will easily keep me busy this winter, mostly trying to stay warm in my bivy

 

[spamel]

If you want to stay warm I suggest a debris shelter. I had one of my warmest nights out in one, they take a bit of time to make but are well worth it and if you will be using the same camp a lot and it has limited access to the public, ie. out of the way, you could leave it up for subsequent trips. Obviously, normal rules on getting permission on private land, etc.

 

[xylaria]

Well anyway IT IS NOVEMBER and Dawdo knows where the gaint puffballs are!!

The puff I have just eaten was a little past its best before date but was still pretty nice, but not fabulosly tasty. I just made sure I ate only the white (ish) bits. fried it up dip in egg with loads of bacon. I fed to my children too. They said " It tasted a little bit good, "

The normal season for giant puffball is summer It is not summer. this year all the mushrooms turned up six weeks early, we got a massive flush. and they all disapered by the last week in october, where normal the good eaty ones would still be about, just. The gaint puffball are very weird about where and when they turn up. If I find one in november I am eating it.

Is it wierd how threads can change in the amount of time it takes me to type a reply out

 

[sam_acw]

The first variety I was shown are Boletes which seem fairly distinct and quite safe.

 

[xylaria]

I dont know why so much fuss is made of gilled fungi. Boletes, morels, chanterelles ect are by far the tastiest, and are pretty hard to make mistakes on. Even the satans bolete just has you worshiping the toilet god for week. False morels and maybe helvellas can put you on the transplant list for new kidneys, but these are very obvious fungi.

Little puffballs were the first fungi I ate all those moons ago, and the taste was that good I have being addicted since. The second mushroom I ate was one these; www.grzyby.pl/gatunki/Grifola_frondosa.htm and it was about half the size of this one which is still huge!!

 

[rich59]

Amanitas that could be confused for shaggy parasol.

My source is mostly "Rogers Mushrooms" online. However I seem to have a load of panther cap local to me.

amanita pantherina (panther cap) is of similar form but brown coloured. Then amanita citrina

In N. America there seem to be a number of pale amanitas to consider:-

amanita pantherina var. multisquamosa

amanita abrupta

amanita muscaria var. alba

Who is to say they don't hop the pond occasionally.



So, I would be myself very wary of choosing a shaggy parasol as a beginner.

I do have a candidate list of mushrooms I might be trying in the next year as I think they are around my area. But I am keen to upgrade my microscope first to be able to see the spores large enough.

A huge bolete - about 20cm across
Ear fungus
A milk cap

 

[chickenofthewoods]

I personally would be hard pressed to confuse a Panther Cap with a Shaggy Parasol. But the 'advice' such as it is, would be the same whether it was this or another fungi/mushroom under discussion. Before you even consider going out picking for the pot do the research - look at specimens, take spore prints, cut sections, learn and look for distinguishing features, colour changes and aroma, & observe habitat. You can even use chemical tests if you feel it will help. Never rely just one source of information, websites and even books can contain some very confusing and conflicting advice. Phillip's new edition of his old title Mushrooms and Other Fungi of Great Britain and Europe, now just called 'Mushrooms' differs from the orignal book as new information has emerged and as a result advice and names have altered for some specimens. The website is based on the older book, so even it might not be wholly reliable, and I know of one entry where a specimen is described as 'edible', 'suspect' and 'poisonous' all in the one listing.

Everything has it's potential pitfalls and hazards.

http://www.abfg.org/index.htm

 

[Bonobo Boy]

Just to confirm.
The only thing you can mistake a giant puffball for, apart from a sheep is a mushroom cloud.
Mushroom clouds are rare and notorious for being impossible to eat!
Seriously though, Giant Puffballs are impossible to mistake and taste fantastic fried.
ENJOY!

 

[Moonraker]

chickenofthewoods, thanks for the great photos and notes on preparing the shaggy parasols.

Couple of points regarding the Shaggy Parasol (Macrolepiota rhacoides).

1. Personally, as a beginner I would steer clear of any Parasol mushrooms other than the Parasol Mushroom (Macrolepiota procera) and then only in open meadows (although it does grow in woods too). This is because there are some smaller forms of Parasol like fungi, as gregorach mentions, that 'could' be mistaken for Amanita sp. (especially Macrolepiota excoriata for example) (though not really easily for the Shaggy Parasol in my book)

But especially because some of the smaller Lepiota which could be mistaken for their larger siblings are poisonous, indeed deadly poisonous in the case of the aptly named Deadly Dapperling (Lepiota brunneo-incarnata).

Just to reinforce the fact that people can and do mistake these for edible parasol species here is a summary/translation from a recent report in a French newspaper;

Fungus poisoning in France
Here’s a condensed translation of a news item on the web this Saturday (10/28).

Over the last two weeks ten people have been admitted to Rennes University hospital in Brittany (specialist in liver transplants) with fungus poisoning.

Out of those two have already undergone a liver transplant and a third is in a touch-and-go state. The other seven are out of danger but will require medical treatment for several months.

Two species were identified as causing the intoxications. Amanita phalloides and Lepiota brunneoincarnata.
In the case of the second species the victims thought they were parasol mushrooms.

The doctor interviewed suggests that this ”epidemic” of poisoning is due to a glut of fungus and the very fine autumn weather.

original source: Le Figaro - Dix personnes hospitalisées à cause de champignons toxiques

2. Even with a positive identification, as Phillips states the Shaggy Parasol is "Edible but may cause gastric upsets in some people. In fact I have had stomach ache on one occasion when eating them although not since. If you do try it (and any new mushroom that you have verified the identify of first!) then do eat it in small quantities at first. Never nibble bits off any fungi for purposes of identification unless you are with an expert for this reason

Shaggy Parasol can and are eaten and are tasty, though I really prefer it's bigger cousin Just be aware.

I really think the way forward for beginners is to go out with someone who really knows their mushrooms or on one of the excellent fungus forays. Stick to a few common edibles, learn about the common deadly varieties and build from there.

Here is a link to a page with all the deadly poisonous fungi found in Britain from the Rogers Mushrooms web site on one page for reference;

Deadly Poisonous Mushrooms (link)

 

[stovie]

..... If you do try it (and any new mushroom) then do eat it in small quantities at first.

It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) this does not apply to the death cap Less than a quarter of a cap is enough to kill, and you rarely become symptomatic until 24hrs later, by which time the toxins have done their damage and liver/kidney failure sets in....not very pleasant....

Of course it applies to all suspect fungi (ie something you cannot 100% identify)

But hey! don't let that put you off

 

[Moonraker]

It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) this does not apply to the death cap Less than a quarter of a cap is enough to kill, and you rarely become symptomatic until 24hrs later, by which time the toxins have done their damage and liver/kidney failure sets in....not very pleasant....

Of course it applies to all suspect fungi (ie something you cannot 100% identify)

But hey! don't let that put you off

I was referring to mushrooms that you have first identified with certainty, i.e. edibles ones!

Actually, even just the spores of the the Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) contain the deadly toxin, hence the reason why you should throw away the whole basket if one gets in amongst other mushrooms. There is also a white capped form too.