Unfortunately, not a lot of pine tree action in my chosen patch. Hundreds of poxy sycamores, horse chestnuts, sweet chestnuts, lime, hawthorn, few oaks, some birch. Lots of apple- including some ancient ones that sprout massive shelf-like things that go black and drop off. (not been here a whole year, no idea what's growing, really)
It pays to have various different foraging grounds. I have three different areas I have been going to for years, all of them more than a 20-mile drive from where I live.
Try to locate pine/fir forests that are within an hour from where you live and which are a bit "out of the way". And take it from there. Visit three or four sites and make a note of the best ones for future reference.
That level of dedication isn't going to happen, I'm afraid. If I'm going out to get mushrooms, I'll go to a shop. Too much other stuff to do, and I really don't need another hobby. Back to seeing what I can find while walking the dog.
I found a sizeable amount of honey mushrooms tonight.
They are some of the most delicious gilled mushrooms in existence, but they require careful preparation, as they contain quite strong toxins when raw. You usually boil them in salt water for ten minutes, and then discard the water and fry or boil them for another five to ten minutes.
>>12335 >I suggest sticking to boletes for the time being.
This has been repeated in the thread a few times over the years, I'm assuming it's the same poster. If I'd followed your advice I'd have eaten no more than a dozen or so wild mushrooms in total, and it's not like I'm allergic to evergreens, or lacked the opportunity to dive into them. I've spent countless hours in classic bolete territory, miles away from anything more than a dirt track, and come away with nothing time after time. Your good fortune, or my bad luck? Bit of both, probably.
>Many gilled mushrooms are edible but just taste bland
Yes, many gilled mushrooms are bland, unless you're creative in the kitchen, but some of the easiest to find and identify are delicious. Anyone looking to start picking mushrooms is either going to have to be similarly lucky to you and come upon a trove of Ceps and other bolete delights, or they're going to get disheartened pretty quickly - and they'll have walked past many more edible gilled mushrooms. On the topic of safety:
>The worst they will do if you pick the wrong ones is spoil your meal or give you diarrhoea for a day or two.
You will survive any British bolete, but one to avoid is Satan's Bolete, (Latin transliteration - Rubroboletus satanas[i]). It can give you substantially more than a day or so of the shits. From Wikipedia: [i]A study in 2012 on mushroom poisoning in Switzerland by Katharina M. Schenk-Jaeger and colleagues found Rubroboletus satanas to have caused severe gastrointestinal symptoms including recurrent vomiting and bloody diarrhoea. And of course it's got muscarine in it just for an extra kick, so while you're shitting liquid blood and puking you'll probably be tripping your nut off. This raises mushroom hunting rule number one, which is why I'm going to bold this bit:
There are no such broad generalisations that are safe when it comes to eating mushrooms. Learning about the really toxic/deadly ones can't be separated from learning about the delicious ones; you have to do both.
Now, I've been a bit of an ornery cunt here, to you in particular, but this:
>make a note of the best ones for future reference.
really is key to efficient mushroom foraging. Find a spot where some worthwhile mushrooms are growing, and remember it. Chances are they'll be back year after year, and you won't have to pore over vague internet guides or overly-complex identification manuals.
>>12343 Er, how were they, by the way? Found scores of them over the years (they're one of the most common mushrooms) but had always read they were toxic and left it at that. I remember reading that their mycelium join up over vast distances and are genetically identical, so by some interpretations they're the largest organic lifeform on the planet.
>I've spent countless hours in classic bolete territory, miles away from anything more than a dirt track, and come away with nothing time after time.
Maybe you were looking for them in years when the weather was too dry. Or you were looking in places that had just been picked clean by somebody before you. The latter is one reason why I said it's a good idea to go on a Friday evening and not on a Saturday morning. Just the other week, I was able to pick a whole basket full of bay boletes and similar species on a Friday afternoon.
But that's one reason why I said it pays to go to a few different areas and just look if there are mushrooms there, and then keep coming back to the best ones.
> Anyone looking to start picking mushrooms is either going to have to be similarly lucky to you and come upon a trove of Ceps and other bolete delights, or they're going to get disheartened pretty quickly - and they'll have walked past many more edible gilled mushrooms.
I believe mushroom hunting teaches you the virtue of persistence, and not giving up even after you've spent an hour looking up and down a section of forest. You are not just going to happen upon a whole massive virgin patch of ceps the minute you enter a forest.
In a way, it's similar to fishing, one of my other nature-related pastimes. If you go fishing to catch loads of big fish, you will inevitably be disappointed 80 percent of the time.
And I just never really got into gilled mushrooms. One year, there was an abundance of blushers here. I picked many of them, but found their taste quite disappointing. The same was true for some other edible species that I have tried.
>It can give you substantially more than a day or so of the shits.
Right. I guess I kind of forgot about the Satan's Bolete there. On the other hand, its distinctive appearance makes it very easy to identify when you're out in the woods, so as long as you remember that one bolete that's a bit more nasty, as well as three or four others that either ruin your meal or can indeed give you the shits, you're golden.
They were nice. I made them into a stir fry with onions and vegetables. I don't usually pick honey mushrooms when I see them, but tonight, there was little else edible growing in that section of forest where I was foraging, so I decided to take them home with me. They do require careful preparation though. I asked my mum on the phone, who has decades of experience mushroom hunting, and she said to boil them for ten minutes, discard the water, and then fry them again for ten minutes. It's been close to four hours now since I ate them, and I'm feeling fine. So that must have done the trick.
>>12346 >Maybe you were looking for them in years when the weather was too dry.
Yeah, maybe. It was a period of a good few years that I was on a major bolete hunt, though.
>Or you were looking in places that had just been picked clean by somebody before you.
I seemed to spend half the time picking cobwebs out of my face and sinking wellie-deep in mud/leafy debris, pretty certain there wasn't anyone else hunting around where I was going. Of course when I did finally find a cep it was at the side of a regularly-used public footpath.
>I believe mushroom hunting teaches you the virtue of persistence, and not giving up even after you've spent an hour looking up and down a section of forest.
I was "lucky" enough to be out of work at the time, so I regularly spent hours per day during the season exploring the area (to get out of the house and stop myself going stir-crazy, as much as anything else). Might just have been that part of Wales.
>One year, there was an abundance of blushers here. I picked many of them, but found their taste quite disappointing.
Do boletes generally retain a more consistent amount of water than gilled mushrooms, I wonder? I remember a few occasions of gilled mushrooms from the same patch that have been fantastic one year and tasteless and watery the next.
>I kind of forgot about the Satan's Bolete there. On the other hand, its distinctive appearance makes it very easy to identify when you're out in the woods
It's not a subtle specimen. It's also apparently far less toxic if cooked, pretty rare, and I certainly don't want to put anyone off getting into foraging for mushrooms, but there just aren't any simple absolutes. There are also a lot of folklore rules of thumb, especially in older "live off the land"-style 70's/80's books that you can still pick up in charity shops etc, that are potentially lethal. I've seen online guides on common mushrooms that only list half a dozen or so that are safe to eat, and those are particularly irresponsible given they're aimed at novices; I remember seeing one that could've easily have passed a death cap for a horse mushroom.
Might have to give honey mushrooms another look, given how often I've come across them in the past.
>I seemed to spend half the time picking cobwebs out of my face and sinking wellie-deep in mud/leafy debris, pretty certain there wasn't anyone else hunting around where I was going. Of course when I did finally find a cep it was at the side of a regularly-used public footpath.
Most mushrooms, certainly boletes, prefer areas of forest floor where there is little undergrowth. Some moss, fern or grass is fine, but you will mostly find them in more bare areas. And although mushrooms are indifferent to light conditions, they often seem to prefer clearings or other slightly more "airy" spots. They also seem to avoid soil conditions that are too wet and muddy.
>I was "lucky" enough to be out of work at the time, so I regularly spent hours per day during the season exploring the area
Mushroom hunting does take its time, like any hobby. But considering that many people who do work spend their evenings or weekends just sat in front of the telly gulping down the pints, you can't really say you haven't got time for it as a wage slave.
>Do boletes generally retain a more consistent amount of water than gilled mushrooms, I wonder? I remember a few occasions of gilled mushrooms from the same patch that have been fantastic one year and tasteless and watery the next.
Not that I would know of, but certainly when it's very wet, they will absorb more rainwater. It also means they spoil faster, so be careful when picking ones that are very wet.
>There are also a lot of folklore rules of thumb, especially in older "live off the land"-style 70's/80's books that you can still pick up in charity shops etc, that are potentially lethal. I've seen online guides on common mushrooms that only list half a dozen or so that are safe to eat, and those are particularly irresponsible given they're aimed at novices;
Buying a comprehensive and fairly recent mushroom guide is key to being a good forager. As I said, my parents have been avid mushroom hunters all their lives, and they've still got the old illustrated books from the 1970s to 1980s. The problem is that a) the hand-drawn illustrations sometimes really don't depict a species well, which can be immensely dangerous especially within the Amanita family, and b) some of the information is so outdated that if you just went by a book like that (perhaps from a second-hand book store or a flea market or a jumble sale), you would run the very real risk of spending a night or two in hospital. All the deadly poisonous mushrooms were marked as such in those old books as they would be in any up-to-date guide, but a few of the species have only in the last 20 or 30 years been found out to be poisonous and are still shown as edible in those old books.
So if you are inspired to try your luck mushroom hunting because you picked up an old guide book for 50p somewhere, that's just about the worst place to start from.
> Might have to give honey mushrooms another look, given how often I've come across them in the past.
Be careful - there is a deadly poisonous lookalike called galerina marginata. I actually saw a bunch of them growing on a tree stump the other weekend. I was going to pick them at first, then I thought I wasn't in the mood for honey mushrooms, and then I actually took the time to get out my guide and look them up because something seemed off that I couldn't put my finger on. They are quite easily mistaken for some members of the honey muhsroom family.
Found a Destroying Angel today while taking a wee on the edge of a forest.
Less than a handful of these is enough to kill a grown man. They are close relatives of the death cap and contain similar amounts of alpha-amatoxin, the stuff that makes death caps so deadly.
Untreated, you will die a horrible slow and painful death.
Well one of its typical characteristics is that it smells of horse radish. And so did this one. So it probably tastes like it as well. Feel free to try it, I'll pass.
>>12360 These are fucking evil. The only difference is that bulb at the bottom, so if you pick them from the top you cannot tell the difference. You have to pick them from the root. They've killed so many people they deserve the name.
>>12363 Sorry I'm drunk and I should clarify they're very similar to an edible mushroom I forget the name of. If you pick just the tops of them, they both look the same, which is why they're so dangerous.
They can be mistaken for various different edible Agaricus mushrooms. But edible Agaricus usually don't have snow white gills like the Destroying Angel. Then again, variations and mutations are indeed observed in the wild, so there is always the risk of getting it wrong.
Because there are so many similarities between edible Agaricus and deadly Amanita species, you're really much better off simply getting agaricus bisporus, i.e. the common button mushroom, from your local supermarket.
Is there any technique or theory on how to find fungi? I've noticed most of my finds tend to be along paths, which would make sense considering wind borne spores carried along air currents, but then I wondered how many times do I actually leave the path.
It just seems you look down and occasionally spot one or two, then more as you kneel and observe. Over time I guess you'll remember where troops and whatever have been so they'll likely return next year. I guess my resistance is to the fact that you just experience it rather than learning as a skill.
From my own experience of picking mainly boletes the last eight or ten years, I can tell you a bit about where to find them. You want areas of forest that consist of pine or fir. Or any conifers really. And boletes usually prefer spots where the vegetation on the forest floor isn't that thick. A bit of moss or dead leaves is fine, but you don't want to be standing in fern, heath, or other vegetation up to your knees.
I've sifted through random images of forest for you on google images, and the picture in this post looks to me like one of your better bets for finding bay boletes and ceps. Try to locate a similar looking patch of forest in your area, and prepare to go up to half a mile or even a mile into the woods off the paths. Because as most people will pick mushrooms right near the paths, it both means that you will only find few there yourself, and they won't be able to propagate in those areas the same way as in more undisturbed spots deep inside a forest. All it takes is one mushroom hunter with a big enough wicker basket who scoured the area an hour before you, and you'll have to wait another week before any sizeable mushrooms will have reappeared. Most people can't be arsed to walk a mile into the woods, but that also means your chances of finding something, both of bigger size and greater quantity, will be much better.
Mushroom season seems to be ending here. I went into an area this afternoon that's almost guaranteed to have enough mushrooms every time to fill up a basket. But today, I went home with just over a handful of bay boletes in acceptable conditon. Despite the fact that we had nigh on 20 degrees here for most of the week. There just don't appear to be many mushrooms left in the ground. So this was probably the last time I went foraging for this year's mushroom season.
I was still able to turn today's yield into half a pot's worth of mushroom vegetable stew. Quite delicious.
>>12377 Well, they are Agarics. Look like a horse/field mushroom, but check against Yellow Stainer. The latter won't kill you but it won't be pleasant either.
I have a feeling as well that they are Yellow Stainers.
I, for one, never really pick agarics in the wild, because there are indeed many ways you can get it wrong, and then you will either spend the day (or several days) on the toilet puking and shitting your guts out, or you might even end up in a casket. Why take that chance, when a punnet of perfectly good agaricus mushrooms can be had for just over a quid at Lidl's.
No sign of any colouration when I cut or otherwise mangled them.
Went in an omlette. Was nice.
You're right that it's not worth a trip out to find them - but, when out walking the dog, I'm not going to turn them down.
>>12379 >a punnet of perfectly good agaricus mushrooms can be had for just over a quid at Lidl's.
They taste nothing like as nice as wild mushrooms. You do need to be careful with agarics, though, agreed.
>>12381 >They taste nothing like as nice as wild mushrooms.
Again, weigh your options. Mediocre tasting but guaranteed safe to eat supermarket agarics, or a wild card from the woods that could give you the shits or put you six feet under.
>>12382 To be honest, if you don't know the differences between a death cap and a horse mushroom then you shouldn't even be thinking of eating wild mushrooms. Yes, you need to be careful, and I've written most of the scare posts in this thread. With respect, though, there's a point beyond which being careful is simply depriving yourself of a tasty meal. Avoiding horse and field mushrooms comes under that for me. (In this case, it's not particularly hard to stay safe from a dodgy belly, and certainly not hard to avoid an agonising death - just follow the identification guidelines, don't ever eat juvenile agarics, etc.)
Or you can limit yourself to finding good bolete patches, like you/the other lad in here, even if they are a 20+ mile drive away. I'm not meaning to be snarky, that's a valid choice, and if I had the option, at this point I'd probably avoid gilled mushrooms too.
To me, as far as wild mushrooms, boletes just taste better. Personal opinion. I could probably tell a Destroying Angel or otherwise unsafe to eat mushroom from an edible agaricus, but I just like boletes better.
Also, I just love being in the woods by myself out in the middle of nowhere. I love the peace and tranquility in a patch of forest where you know there isn't a single soul around for a few miles. And if you have to drive 20 miles to find a patch with good boletes, then that makes it all the more an exciting event. Your basket (hopefully) full of boletes will be well earned when you drive home again.
It's that time of year again, lads, and I've moved to somewhere that has grass and greenery and all that. So I'm on the hunt again, after five years of missing out. Earlier this month I had some brown birch boletes, which were nice in texture but unremarkable in taste.
Today I was wandering along and saw this, at least a hundred of them in a 15m ring, and I thought I'd hit the field mushroom jackpot. It turns out they're yellow stainers, though, which are not deadly poisonous but cause stomach upsets in most people. However, some people can eat them with no apparent ill effects.
Well, I've got a bag full of the fuckers so I'm going to find out. I should know within 2 hours tops, I'll either be shitting my guts out and cradling my stomach like a stab wound, or I'll be plating up another serving to go alongside the handful of shaggy inkcaps I also found. Wish me luck, .gs.
(I'll take my camera with me from now on, get proper shots of what I find.)
Little article here about Our Fungi Lord and Saviour, Roger Phillips, and mushrooms in general. Found in the Observer. Probably online now that I think about it, but fuck it, I made the effort so here it is.
>>4633 Food? Not food?
It's been a weird old year, but things are sprouting all over the place now.
This little fella's on a felled ash tree, if relevant.
I've seen those too around here lately. Don't know what kind they are, but it didn't occur to me that they could be edible. Your best bet is always to treat everything as poisonous that you cannot identify with 100 percent certainty.
No meal is worth dying for. Might sound a bit dramatic, but it's worth remembering that out of the several thousand species of fungi in the UK, only a few dozen are edible. Not every poisonous mushroom will kill you, some just give you horrible diarrhea or other symptoms for a few days, but you shouldn't take any chances.
>>15290 Yes this.
Wildfood.co.uk is my first point of call for identifying edible mushrooms.
They say its better dried as used as a mushroom stock rather than eaten whole.
(Don't just go on youtube, as well as the usual problem of people who don't know what they're talking about, you also have the more specific problem of mushrooms being very localised and what's safe to eat in one country has poisonous lookalikes in different regions.)
>you also have the more specific problem of mushrooms being very localised and what's safe to eat in one country has poisonous lookalikes in different regions.
I've read that a lot of people from eastern Europe who come here mistake the destroying angel or even a more pale coloured specimen of the death cap for the bearded amanita which grows there but not here, and is a popular edible mushroom in those countries. So yeah, always be careful.
We once went mushroom foraging in Majorca in autumn, we encountered loads of mushrooms in the mountains there, but decided to pass on almost all of them because we had no real idea what they were. We did find a shedload of chanterelles in one area, so we decided to take just those.
Found some pennybun, larch boletes and parasols tonight.
Parasols have a distinct nut flavour, somewhere between peanut and hazelnut. Tasted kind of weird together with the other ones. I know they are much appreciated by other mushroom foragers, but I don't think I'll eat them again.
Big haul this afternoon. A whole wicker basket brimming with the best quality pennybun and bay boletes I've seen in a long time.
Personally, I actually like the bay bolete better. I know everybody loves the pennybun, but the bay bolete has a slightly stronger and earthier taste which goes great with dry red wine.