The first thing you need to know about fungi...

Now this is some good advice

Recently I saw a feature on BBC news, about a woman who decided to improve a can of soup with a deathcap fungus (Amanita phalloides) that was growing in her back yard, with predictable results.

The story is tragic, but eating any kind of amanita, or indeed any wild mushroom if you don't now what "amanita" means, is in my mind equal to violating such safety rules as "look before crossing the road" and "don't pour petrol over open fire". Deathcaps are not to blame. This mother-of-four was killed by her recklessness and ignorance.

Unfortunately, the video that goes with the article does nothing to address the issue. In it Mark Lloyd, chef and forager, gives some sensible advice, "if you don't know what it is, don't eat it", but also makes two statements that made me scream "someone is wrong on the internet" and run to the nearest networked computer to write this post.

"They <deathcaps> are wild plants". No, they are not. They have a kingdom of their own, Fungi, and are distinct from plants, animals, or bacteria. They have chitin rather than cellulose in their cell walls, which indicates that on the great tree of life they are closer to animals than plants. They also have a unique lifecycle that is unlike that of any other multicellular organism, but I'll leave this subject for another post.

Woolly milk cap and saffron milk cap.
Which one would you eat?

"A mushroom that grows in a certain area, under a certain tree, is perfectly fine, and if it grows under a different tree, it will draw toxins from that tree and become poisonous". Now, I'm not sure what's going on here, since this is presented as one of the "tricks" that you need to know before you go mushroom hunting. A not-so-subtle way to get people onto this chef's foraging courses, perhaps? The truth is, fungi can draw nasty substances from places like busy roads, or toxic and radioactive waste dumps, but not from plants. Instead, you can have two very similar species of mushrooms that are associated with different trees, one of which would be safe to eat, while the other may cause a stomach upset or worse. An example of these could be woolly milk cap and saffron milk cap, or yellow staining mushroom and field mushroom. Therefore, it is not a "trick" but a matter of proper identification.

There, it's off my chest, I can breathe again, until next time.

Image credits:
Deathcap warning sign, public domain
Woolly milk cap, used under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
Saffron milk cap, used under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.