Scarlet and scary

Boletus luridiformis,
a perfect specimen

John Wright, the author of the River Cottage Handbook on Mushrooms, says thus: "Do not worry about the Leccinum's tendency to go various shades of greens and pinks and blacks when cut - they are just trying to frighten you".

Now, I have eaten a good number of orange and brown birch boletes (both of which are Leccinum species), but when it comes to this relative of theirs, the scarletina bolete, Boletus luridiformis, it took me several years to get together the courage to put it into my cooking pot.

The reason is, it's indeed lurid: velvety dark reddish-brown cap sits on top of a densely scarlet-dotted stem, the cap underside is dark-red, and its bright yellow flesh turns a vivid blue when cut. Everything in this mushroom screams: DO NOT EAT ME!

There is a method
to my apparent madness...
(if you don't have one,
NEVER eat strange mushrooms!)

However, the abovementioned reference book says that it is safe to eat as long as it is thoroughly cooked. So the scream apparently just means, "don't eat me raw". I'm fine with that!

The method for cooking I chose, just to be on the safe side, was to slice one cap, boil the pieces in plenty of water for 15 minutes, discard the water, and then fry the fungus in some butter with salt. The result was pleasantly firm, mushroomy and nutty. I only ate a little bit at first, as this fungus is known to cause gastric upsets in some people, but if all is well in the next 24 hours, it would mean that I'm one of the lucky majority who are unaffected, and then there will be yet another mushroom that I'll be able to harvest!

Image credit:
Boletus luridiformis aka Boletus erythropus