Bay Area Mushroom poisoning

[andiesenji]

June 3, 2017  The Washington Post article.

"Its exact death toll is unclear, but the species was involved in many of the worst cases of 679 mushroom poisonings reported in California between November 2015 and October 2016"

 

“These mushrooms are large, beautiful, delicious and deadly, with toxins that are not destroyed by cooking,” wrote the North American Mycological Association, whose Bay Area branch alerted California officials late last year that the death caps were blooming in great numbers."

 

Amateur mushroom gatherers are to blame for this "outbreak" and too often it is enthusiastic novices who make this mistake.  

 

Years ago I knew an elderly man (probably the age I am now) who regularly foraged for mushrooms in the area around Cambria, CA.

He also taught people how to recognize the safe mushrooms from the deadly. And he told them if they could not carry the laminated sheets with detailed photos and drawings he gave as part of the course, his advice was "DON'T GO."

This was before the internet.  Since it is now easy to find online photos and suggestions, far too many people are out gathering mushrooms without proper education and in this case, lack of education can be a death sentence. 

 

[TicTac]

Scary.

 

But then again, as the old saying goes, if you are not 100% sure what it is, don't touch it!

 

Just from the picture alone and what very little I know:

 

- Mushrooms on the ground are typically more suspect

- Mushrooms with a little 'frill' around the stem are far more suspect

 

I'll stick to species that have no known 'look-alike killers'.

 

 

[dcarch]

54 minutes ago, TicTac said:

But then again, as the old saying goes, if you are not 100% sure what it is, don't touch it!

 

If you are 100% sure, don't eat!!

 

You need a second 100% sure opinion from an expert.

 

dcarch

[Katie Meadow]

I was into mushroom hunting for many years. I belonged to the SF Mycological Society and went foraging for shrooms in the Bay Area. One big source of confusion that has always existed for people who grew up or hunted for shrooms in different parts of the country and the world; some mushrooms in one locale can look very much like those in an entirely different part of the world but can be very different chemically. The Amanita, aka death cap, destroying angel, etc, is indeed deadly. There are mushrooms in Asia that look very much like it and are routinely picked and eaten to no ill effects. 

 

If you want to get into foraging, join a society, go on sponsored outings, get a really well regarded book and be a scientist about it. Learn what time of year and what environments various mushrooms like, what trees they associate with. Pick anything for scientific purposes: wrap all types separately in wax paper so they don't touch each other. Never eat a wild mushroom raw. Don't pick the top of a mushroom: some are most easily identified by their stems/buried parts. Take them home and carefully ID them, Make spore sprints to assure identity. This part is fun, and even if you don't come home with edibles it makes the trip seem worthwhile. The same rules apply equally for any mushroom, whether it grows on the ground or anywhere else, just to be safe. Many of the most delicious mushrooms do grow on the ground, so that should not determine whether you pick them.

 

Once you know how to identify a death cap--including how to pull them up properly so you can see their little skirt--you will not be in danger of being poisoned by it. Don't put your fingers in your mouth while foraging, and if you have a dog inclined to eat everything that litters or grows, don't take him or her mushroom hunting. 

[TicTac]

6 minutes ago, dcarch said:

 

If you are 100% sure, don't eat!!

 

You need a second 100% sure opinion from an expert.

 

dcarch

Heck, I wont even touch something if I have not had a 'mushroom master' present showing me the proper growing environment and confirming its validity before picking.  There are times I am hunting Elm Oyster Mushrooms and have seen some that I thought (and was near certain) were 'normal' oysters (many gills, far more than the Elm) but still left them alone as I wasn't certain.  Same to be said for what appeared to be Chantrelles but the cap and stem separation seemed slightly off.  Regardless - if someone hasn't shown you (whom you trust!), leave it alone!

[andiesenji]

In western Kentucky, where I grew up, one of my grandpa's stable men would go out into the woods at daybreak and bring back a basket full of mushrooms that grew on trees.  He would never pick mushrooms from the ground - I don't know why - but there were a lot of oyster mushrooms and chicken of the woods, honey mushrooms and others that I don't know the names of.

It's possible there were few mushrooms on the ground because there were wild hogs that ran in those woods.  

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I was watching a charming YouTube video of a late old lady in her nineties who talks about how her family lived through the Great Depression years and the food they ate to survive. The videos are made by one of her grandson's who was a photography student at the time and calls her "his favorite person".  This segment is about foraged wild mushrooms, and although she's using portobellos in the linked reenactment, she says they used to drop a quarter into the pan with the mushrooms, and if it turned colors the shrooms were no good. This lady chops and peels veggies with a paring knife in the air with her hands, doesn't measure, even by volume, you know, an old school grandma cook. Does anyone think there is any merit to her theory that poisonous mushroom turn silver off colors? Quarters would have been silver during the Depression, or no? This reference is 2:13 into the video. They did survive, and she lived 98 years eating foraged mushrooms, just sayin'.