Wild Mushrooms - Safe to touch?

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Wild Mushrooms - Safe to touch?
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cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 05 12:07 pm Post subject:

jema wrote:

Welcome back Cab, that was a long break!

jema

It was... I really ought to have mentioned, but I was all ahoo over Christmas.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 05 12:08 pm Post subject:

Behemoth wrote:

Are any of the the Russula worth it? There's loads around here but Philips put me off.

Most definitely! The charcoal burner is a superb edible species, as is the yellow swamp russula. Many of the common russulas are tasty, but fragile.

Typically, if I come across a non-red russula, I test a tiny sample on my tongue. If it doesn't burn, taste soapy or horrible, then it goes (gently!) into the basket.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 05 12:13 pm Post subject:

Deerstalker wrote:

Considering what I do, I spend a lot of time in the woods and fields.

Although I would like to know more, I really don't see that many mushrooms!

The books tell me such things as found on chalk soils or under beech.

Cab, your list is impressive, but you don't say what part of world you come from, or how far you have to travel?

I have only really started looking since early last summer but haven't seen that much.

Am I looking in the wrong direction or is the soil geology that important?

Soil geology matters. But most places will yield you -something- edible.

The best advice is to keep your eyes down, looking out for markers that might indicare mushroom growth. Rings on the grass or in the undergrowth, bare patches, oddly coloured patches. Be aware of the smells; sometimes you can have a good find by smell. And low down-ish as well as forward-ish.

Most of my foraging is done in some really scrubby local woodland- in a really small patch too! I also find a lot of mushrooms on the local housing estates in North Camridge. It's probably the worst place I've lived for mushrooming (dry, poor soil and naff geology for it), but it's still not all that bad. Occasionally (once a year maybe) we head as far afield as Thetford, also picked a few mushrooms in Epping last year.

deerstalker

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 589

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 05 12:28 pm Post subject:
Eyesight and observation are pretty good on the whole. I don't wear glasses and observation is a key part of what I do. Just don't seem to come across very many. Maybe it's because I'm keeping an eye out whilst doing other things rather than going on specific mushroom forays?

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 05 1:11 pm Post subject:
[quote="Cab Typically, if I come across a non-red russula, I test a tiny sample on my tongue. If it doesn't burn, taste soapy or horrible, then it goes (gently!) into the basket.[/quote] So a wood full of red ones isn't much good then

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 05 1:30 pm Post subject:

Behemoth wrote:

So a wood full of red ones isn't much good then

Well, you want to avoid the sickener and the beechwood sickener, but some other reddish russulas are edible. I'd not bother, though, as even the best of the other red ones that I've sampled has been a bit dull.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 05 1:36 pm Post subject:

Deerstalker wrote:

Just don't seem to come across very many. Maybe it's because I'm keeping an eye out whilst doing other things rather than going on specific mushroom forays?

Could also be the terrain. If you're going through dense undergrowth you rarely see anything growing. Tell us more about your foraging grounds and maybe someone can give you some more constructive advice?

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 05 9:19 pm Post subject:

Deerstalker wrote:

Maybe it's because I'm keeping an eye out whilst doing other things rather than going on specific mushroom forays?

Strange, one of the reasons I'm interested in Deer, apart from venison, is that we've seen quite a few deer while foraging for fungi, so I'd like to know more about them.

Being a beginner I would say we have more luck on acid soil, under mixed pine, birch and other broad leaf trees. Especially at the edges of paths and rides in the woods.

Mind you, some places we go we will not see a single fungi in fields and woods but we go down one path and there are a large amount of different types.

deerstalker

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 589

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 05 11:10 pm Post subject:

Most of the ground I cover is open grazing, hedges and oak woodland. The soil covers carboniferous sandstone and shale.

One area where there seem to be quite a few mushrooms, is the lower Swansea valley (mixed birch and conifer). The ground is however, contaminated with heavy metals from the industrial revolution!

Check out the Lower Swansea Valley Project and tell me if you think they are safe to eat!

https://www.swanseaheritage.net/themes/industry/swanval.asp

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Jan 05, 05 8:46 am Post subject:
DS, the oak woodland should be ideal. If we get a moist summer you should find plenty there, as you also should around the edges of grazing land. Mushrooms aren't normally badly contaminated even if picked from along roadsides, but I quite see why you'd want to avoid them if they're from somewhere specifically contaminated with heavy metals!

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Sat Jan 15, 05 4:28 pm Post subject:

Cab wrote:

... Mushrooms aren't normally badly contaminated even if picked from along roadsides, but I quite see why you'd want to avoid them if they're from somewhere specifically contaminated with heavy metals!

I suppose I'm an "Italian-style" gatherer by your classification!
However, I've had the impression that mushrooms, generally, were particularly effective at gathering heavy metals - this may have come from Chernobyl-effects news...
Accordingly, I've resisted picking at roadsides, which I believe to be still fairly lead-rich.

Is there an authoritative source for information on this?
A brief bit of Googling suggested that the Boletes, especially, were noted as bioaccumulators of heavy metals...

I've also wondered if there was evidence that fungi might concentrate any other nasties, agrochemical residues for example, which I've seen cited as a reason for not foraging on Golf Courses - is there anything authoritative?

BTW, I think the Collins guide "How to Identify Edible Mushrooms" is a useful companion to Phillips. Its illustrations complement Phillips' photos, and by concentrating on easy edibles and those they could be confused with, as well as the specific section on things to avoid, it makes the subject much less initially daunting!

Last edited by dougal on Sat Jan 15, 05 4:32 pm; edited 1 time in total

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Sat Jan 15, 05 4:30 pm Post subject:

dougal wrote:

BTW, I think the Collins guide "How to Identify Edible Mushrooms" is a useful companion to Phillips. Its illustrations complement Phillips' photos, and by concentrating on easy edibles and those they could be confused with, as well as the section on things to avoid, it makes the subject much less initially daunting!

Do you know the author, as a Collins book has been recommended to me on a few organised forays but I think it's out of print.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Sat Jan 15, 05 4:43 pm Post subject:
I suspect this is the current edition: https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/000219984X/ref=pd_sim_b_dp_1/202-5928969-4128601 (Mine is softcover, and not where I thought it was!) The cover looks different - But the description of the contents (scroll down past the offer pairing it with Phillips) does fit exactly! Last edited by dougal on Sat Jan 15, 05 5:27 pm; edited 2 times in total

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Sat Jan 15, 05 4:50 pm Post subject:
I don't think it was the one I thought, although I've found the more books I have the easier it is to identify some fungi. I take one with me and anything that we are unsure of we keep separate from the identified ones until we get home.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Sun Jan 16, 05 6:03 pm Post subject:

dougal wrote:

There was a report compiled by MAFF a year or three ago:

https://archive.food.gov.uk/maff/archive/food/infsheet/2000/no199/199multi.htm

The view I've formed from reading that and other things over the years is that yes, there's a chance that mushrooms could be a bit contaminated, but that unless you're picking from a busy road or some suchlike there's nothing really to be too worried about.

Quote:

I've also wondered if there was evidence that fungi might concentrate any other nasties, agrochemical residues for example, which I've seen cited as a reason for not foraging on Golf Courses - is there anything authoritative?

I pick from golfcourses. I don't know whether it's a good idea, but it seems to me that most 'rough' areas of golf courses are not subject to intensive treatment.

Mushroom mycelium really is good at accumulating metal ions if there is a really high concentration around; off the top of my head, I can't think of a means by which they'd be better at accumulating other agrochemicals than most plants (other than that many are saprophytic, so they'll concentrate things by being trphically higher up than plants, I guess).

Quote:

BTW, I think the Collins guide "How to Identify Edible Mushrooms" is a useful companion to Phillips. Its illustrations complement Phillips' photos, and by concentrating on easy edibles and those they could be confused with, as well as the specific section on things to avoid, it makes the subject much less initially daunting!

It isn't a bad tome; I've never found the diagrams in it to be much good, but the text is most useful.

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