My neighbour has just come over with a bucket of mushrooms that have grown in her backyard. As they have grown in mushroom compost she put down as mulch a month ago, and as she and her family have eaten a bucket or two and are still alive, I'll assume they are OK.

But for an ignoramus like me, how do I tell? The lady next door said that if the cut stems stayed white (not yellow) they were safe. My Dad said that if you could peel the skin off the top they were safe.

Could one of you gourmet type people tell me how I know what is safe to feed my family?

you do need to excercise caution and yes if they have eaten a whole bucket of exactly what they gave you and are still alive and kicking you are going to be pretty safe.

but with any wild food you need to know what to look for yourslef so you can be certain, if you do a search online you could find a wild mushroom eaters club, join them and learn it is the best way, even better than books as pictures can at times be misleading, adn in nature no one picture can reperesent all phases of any one plant, in the variety of growing conditions. but a book would be better that going it alone.

i have a friend who knows his mushies and he scares me when we ahd the rporperty he would look at something at asks me what it was i would say toadstool becaue i don't know its safe to eat, he would inspect it and then eat it and tell me it was safe, that's how i learnt more than what i already knew.

basically the safe mushies are those with the pink to dark/maroon sort of colour underneath, they are all safe, but then some of the others are as well, and then some of the safe ones are better eaten for flavour after they have been open a couple of days or so before picking othe need to be picked fresh on the first morning early.

len

"safe mushies are those with the pink to dark/maroon sort of colour underneath"

as opposed to what colour the unsafe ones have? I wouldn't call these maroon so much as brown - but they look exactly the same as the mushrooms I buy from the shops

yeh we all percieve colour description somewhat differently a brownish colour with a tinge of dark pink maybe? generally the poison ones look downright ugly and stink they are generally a white or dirty white underneath, although one edible i know of is quiet white all over but very light flavour.

you should realy pick your own once you know what to look for or eat from others pics if you trust them implicitly, one of the gardeners over at ausgarden posted some pics of mushies in her yard they are edibles but she wasn't game because of a past mistake.

if you could post some pics that will give me an idea but i still don't recommend unless i have actually picked them or have knowledge and at this stage you probably need more knowledge.

just a mistake can be pretty horrendous and you will never go that way again.

you will be pretty safe if they look like the store bought ones.

did you search out a club yet?

len

Picking mushrooms is a unique combination of forest law and requires knowledge of the seasons, soils, rainfall, plant hosts and most importantly mushroom ID. Old timers are often very reluctant to part with this knoweledge which is a terrible shame, but clubs solve this problem.

You're right about the yellow staining. The other most common white, brown gilled mushroom in Aust is the horse mushroom but the test to tell its a horse mushy is to bruise it and see if it goes a VIVID yellow colour. While it wont usually kill you it will give you a very bad tummmy. I've only ever once come across this mushroom in a Melbourne park and the color is rich highlighter pen yellow within a minute of bruising, there is no mistaking it.

By all reports the very poisonous mushrooms do not usually smell and they are very good to eat. They just kill you in a very very bad way. My experience of the deathcaps and destroying angels et.al in the ACT is that they are VERY handsome mushrooms with a good mushroomy smell. So I'm not at all surprised that people sometimes eat them mistakenly and end up dead. My rule is NEVER eat a white gilled. This easily rules out the amanita family of killers.

My favorite mushy in Australia is the pine bolete. There's no mistakeing it and its out in the pine forests now as the cooler weather and rains come. They enjoy the soil where compacted roadsides give way to forest in the older commercial radiata pine forests. They have sponge rather than gills and are a great nutty flavor when raw. But go very pungent and strong when cooked or dried. They are very close in taste to the porcini mushroom of italy. (which in Delis they try to sell to you at ridiculous prices)

Be careful, but its a great craft to learn.
Karl

*these mushrooms do not have any yellow stain when the cap is bruised/cut

*these mushrooms grew where my neighbour put down mushroom compost as mulch (so presumably had spores still in it, and hte drizzly weather would have been perfect growing conditions

* my neighbour and her family have eaten them, and are still alive

I did read up on the net - and I've been turned off going mushrooming EVER! I'm still not sure if I'm even game enough to eat these ones! I didn't find any mushroom clubs online either.

thanks everyone!!

did you try a search online for a mushroom or fungi eaters club?

i saw a doco' a long time back and ther was a club in melbourne or vic somewhere.

len

Rose

as mention there before there is that yellow one that looks like and edible but you get the yellow stain on your fingers if you rub it also dangerous.

so if you are new into fungii eating then do your research first, and i still say the best way is to find a club they are out there. i only know a couple of varieties and there are many more edibles than that.

len

mushrooms stayed in the fridge till today - I dumped them on the compost tonight! I was too scared to risk it!

We picked beautiful field mushrooms up around Dargo a few years ago. Happened to be in the right place at the right time. We had so many that I mowed some into our 'lawn' to spread the spores.

We have had quite a few mushrooms since, whenever the weather was warm and moist, but this year they acted a little like yellow stainers, going quite red when fried in butter and having a more chemical taste. Strange, as you would think they wouldn't change from year to year.