Fun Guy

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Thanks of thinking of me!

Here's a couple of pics I took a while back... any ID? I named one as "Slippery Jack" after looking online, but I've no idea really. The other pic was taken in Finland.

Hmmmmph - I suppose Swedish mushrooms will have Volvos ????????

 

[661-Pete]

That's another word that mycologists probably have to be 'careful' with. I've still got this picture in my mind of TheClaud and the giggling Brownie pack.... OK never mind!

The first one, Fnaar, isn't Slippery Jack, at least not what I call 'Slippery Jack', Suillus luteus, a type of bolete. Piccie isn't really clear enough, might be a clump of honey fungus or Pholiota... The second one looks like a 'Blusher' - one of the Amanitas again, not deadly this one: in fact some books quote it as edible if well cooked, but definitely not to be tried IMO! Too easy to confuse with .....

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Err - which of these is the recommended tome (assuming it's there) please? The first one is a tenner or so then there is the £35 ish one .......... etc etc

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb...phillips+mushrooms&sprefix=phillips+mushrooms

Thanks

 

[Svendo]

The top one : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mushrooms-R...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287950482&sr=1-1
I got it for my birthday this year and haven't poisoned myself yet! Note it's the most up to date, 2006.
So far I've had some field mushrooms, dunno which exact species though they were eaten. Picked some boeltus growing under birch, didn't positively identify but was one of several in the edible but not worth it category. Picked some ordinary inkcaps, but they react with alcohol, and yesterday found some shaggy inkcaps which I ate, nice spicy flavour.

 

[Crackle]

Fungi pickers think on

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/24/wild-mushroom-foraging-hurts-forests

An obligatory misery report

 

[661-Pete]

Fungi pickers think on

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/24/wild-mushroom-foraging-hurts-forests

An obligatory misery report

This article refers to commercial picking - the word is unaccountably missing from the Grauniad's headline, but present in the sub-heading. Typical. And also, curiously, the article mentions messrs. Carluccio and Oliver, but not a squeak of the Grauniad's very own pet mushroom guru, Cor Blimey Wassisname, or whatever he calls himself ....

I have already said that commercial clean-ups of woodland sites - possibly with the aid of Satnav to ensure no square inch of the forest is missed - bother me a hell of a lot. Difficult to know what to do about it. I would ask folks to think before selecting wild mushroom dishes in restaurants...

As for us - we're careful not to damage the habitat as we go mushrooming. Certainly I wouldn't consider hacking or trampling a flowering plant to get at a mushroom. Often enough mushrooms grow near a path and are easy to collect. And - if I crawl under the lowest strand of a barbed-wire fence to get at a particularly choice specimen - well that's my own look-out !

 

[theclaud]

Thanks of thinking of me!

Here's a couple of pics I took a while back... any ID? I named one as "Slippery Jack" after looking online, but I've no idea really. The other pic was taken in Finland.

I'm with Pete - my money (though not much) is on Armillaria mellea (aka Honey or Bootlace Fungus - a devastating tree parasite, but quite good to eat once cooked - don't eat those ones in case I'm wrong) and Amanita rubescens (or possibly A. spissa) - an allegedly harmless Amanita but too close to the deadly Panther Cap for comfort. I love Amanitas to look at, but the only one I'd even think about eating is Amanita caesarea, which doesn't grow in this country anyway. The emperor Claudius was reputedly poisoned with Amanita phalloides sneaked into a dish of Caesar's Mushrooms by Agrippina...

 

[theclaud]

This article refers to commercial picking - the word is unaccountably missing from the Grauniad's headline, but present in the sub-heading. Typical. And also, curiously, the article mentions messrs. Carluccio and Oliver, but not a squeak of the Grauniad's very own pet mushroom guru, Cor Blimey Wassisname, or whatever he calls himself ....

I have already said that commercial clean-ups of woodland sites - possibly with the aid of Satnav to ensure no square inch of the forest is missed - bother me a hell of a lot. Difficult to know what to do about it. I would ask folks to think before selecting wild mushroom dishes in restaurants...

As for us - we're careful not to damage the habitat as we go mushrooming. Certainly I wouldn't consider hacking or trampling a flowering plant to get at a mushroom. Often enough mushrooms grow near a path and are easy to collect. And - if I crawl under the lowest strand of a barbed-wire fence to get at a particularly choice specimen - well that's my own look-out !

For so many reasons. I'd have to know the restaurant quite well before I trusted them not to kill me, and good mushrooms are wasted on most restaurants in this country anyway. I even go quite carefully through those little jars of preserved mushrooms, most of which are probably cultivated anway. But you often get some sort of Volvariella in them, and in Chinese restaurants, and the supericial similarity to the Amanitas is disconcerting...

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

The top one : http://www.amazon.co...87950482&sr=1-1
I got it for my birthday this year and haven't poisoned myself yet! Note it's the most up to date, 2006.
So far I've had some field mushrooms, dunno which exact species though they were eaten. Picked some boeltus growing under birch, didn't positively identify but was one of several in the edible but not worth it category. Picked some ordinary inkcaps, but they react with alcohol, and yesterday found some shaggy inkcaps which I ate, nice spicy flavour.

OK thanks. I've just ordered it from Amazon

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Fungi pickers think on

http://www.guardian....g-hurts-forests

An obligatory misery report

For me it'll be the odd interesting one to identify. I won't be trampling and harvesting like that. It's an interest not a financial opportunity - so A Sugar wouldn't understand.....

 

[summerdays]

Well I went on a walk today ... and had all the children watching out but didn't spot any on Brent Knoll (though the most enormous mole hills? I have ever seen about 8 inches high and 12+ inches across) ... probably not the right environment perhaps, going to try another walk later in the week and see if I find any to photograph.

The mole hills?

 

[threebikesmcginty]

for Fnaar's benefit, it's called a volva

I've got one of those - it's a big one too.

Heard a bit on R4 news tonight saying that fungi hunters are ruining the countryside, I'm in the clear as i generally hunt mine in Saino's.

 

[661-Pete]

For so many reasons. I'd have to know the restaurant quite well before I trusted them not to kill me, and good mushrooms are wasted on most restaurants in this country anyway. I even go quite carefully through those little jars of preserved mushrooms, most of which are probably cultivated anway. But you often get some sort of Volvariella in them, and in Chinese restaurants, and the supericial similarity to the Amanitas is disconcerting...

Volvariella volvacea - the commercial 'straw mushroom' or 'paddy straw mushroom' of S E Asia, widely cultivated and often tinned or dried in Asian food shops (never seen it fresh). I would think the cultivated form is perfectly safe, but I haven't bought any myself. I think I've had it at the occasional Chinese or Vietnamese restaurant - nothing special.

Interestingly, I remember, a few years ago, a walk alongside arable fields on the Downs - poor hunting grounds for mushrooms you would imagine, you'd be right! But on that day, there were literally tens of thousands of mushrooms, all apparently of the same species, carpeting a recently harvested field of stubble - turnips by the look of things. I've never seen so many mushrooms of the same kind crowded together like that over many acres, before or since. Examining one carefully convinced me that it was a wild relative of the Paddy Straw - Volvariella speciosa - which is in theory edible. For an instant I had this wild idea: maybe the farmer is sitting on a goldmine here, must be tons of edible mushies to harvest. But - perhaps not. Volvariella is one species that I would never touch from the wild - far too risky as TheClaud points out. And the wild form is apparently rather indifferent in flavour.

 

[User169]

The Express' take on that Guardian article is much more amusing.

 

[661-Pete]

The Express' take on that Guardian article is much more amusing.

Ho! You must mean this one:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/207380/Migrants-help-to-strip-New-Forest-of-its-mushrooms
No doubt spiced up with tales of GAY IMMIGRANT SANDAL-WEARING MUSLIM VEGETARIAN BEARDED CYCLIST TRAVELLERS nicking all our precious mushies....

Interestingly, the person in the photo appears to be picking Paxillus. Which are poisonous...