Alexander Schwab - Mushrooming with Confidence: A Guide to Collecting Edible and Tasty Mushrooms

Alexander Schwab

Alexander Schwab grew up in Switzerland and was awarded a masters degree in philosophy and history at Aberdeen University. His main interests are all aspects of fishing, hunting, and mushrooming. He lives in the beautiful Emmental region of Switzerland and when not fishing, hunting, or mushrooming he is thinking or writing about them.

Text and Photographs Copyright 2010, 2012 by Alexander Schwab First published by Merlin Unwin Books Ltd. (Ludlow UK) in 2011.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file. ISBN: 978-1-62087-195-9

eISBN: 978-1-62087-743-2

Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this book. In no circumstances can the publisher or the author accept any liability for any loss, injury, or damage of any kind resulting from an error or omission in the information contained in this book. The same applies to the website www.mushrooming.co.uk and its contents and links.

Printed in China

Contents

1.Read the entire book twice in order to be sure you understand the approach.

2.Study the Gills, Ridges, Tubes, and Spines sections until youre confident you can correctly distinguish these features; then youre ready for a foray.

3.Double-check the mushrooms you have picked, back at home, by completing the positive identification checklist step by step, which is listed at the end of every species featured in this book. You must be able to check off every single box. If you can, you have the right species. If you cant, you might not have, so dont eat it.

4.Only eat mushrooms that you have clearly identified with all the positive ID marks.

5.If a mushroom smells rotten, it is rotten and if it feels soggy, it is soggy.

6.Never, never eat wild mushrooms raw.

What does edible mean?

There are few pleasures as exclusive and satisfying as a feast of delicious wild mushrooms. Likewise, there are few pleasures that can be as fraught with anxiety as mushroom hunting. Nothing curbs the appetite more effectively than a nagging worry that what you eat might make you illor kill you. Conventional mushroom identification books promise to enable you to identify hundreds, if not thousands, of edible mushrooms. However, edible simply implies not poisonous and is no indicator of culinary value. Cardboard is edible, too.

Mushrooming with Confidence focuses on the very best and most common mushrooms and allows you to identify them safely. In this book, youll find only the mushrooms of the top league, and, luckily, these are easily and safely identified provided you follow the method presented here. If you carry out all the instructions to the letter, youll enjoy the most delicious mushrooms, untroubled by fear and doubt.

Learn to leave a mushroom

Some people find it really difficult not to pick everything they spot. It might be edible, they probably think. Theyre encouraged in this attitude by encyclopedic mushroom identification books displaying a bewildering multitude of mushrooms. This induces indiscriminate mushroom hunting of the pick first, ask questions later variety, which is the wrong approach. Back home, attempts to identify the edible ones with the help of a conventional mushroom identification book invariably fail because there is not enough detail to be truly confident you have the right species.

It is tempting to pick every beautiful mushroom you come across, but indiscriminate mushroom hunting is not only dangerous, it makes a nonsense of conservation.

Even advanced mushroom pickers often face many uncertainties. The same mushroom looks different at each stage of its development and different again when conditions are, for example, very wet or very dry.

Look-alike poisonous species

Conventional mushroom guides always include warnings against look-alike poisonous species. This simply adds to the uncertainty. Mushrooming with Confidence asks you not to compare but to positively identify the most valuable mushrooms by their unique and unmistakable features. This approach automatically eliminates dangerous or deadly species, provided you play your part correctly. Basically, this means:

1.Be disciplined enough to leave alone most mushrooms you encounter.

2.Look closely at what you see in front of you, not at what you wish was there.

3.Stick to the rules and check off every box on the identification page in this book.

You wouldnt buy a soggy, worm-infested, half-rotten mushroom in the supermarket. So why pick it in the woods? Quality, as seen in this example of perfect charcoal burners, is what the discerning mushroom hunter is after.

Mushrooming with Confidence aims to make younot a mycologistbut an expert on the best edible mushrooms. That in turn might provoke a deeper interest in the world of mushrooms. In either case, enjoy!

The tools of the trade

The minimum equipment required consists of a knife and a basket or canvas tote for transportation. Mushrooms want to breathe. If you put them in a plastic bag, theyll suffocate in no time at all, and your beautiful, fresh mushrooms will transform into a soggy mess.

If possible, use a proper mushroom knife with an integrated brush for cleaning. As the first cleaning of the mushroom should be done in the woods, the brush is very useful.

The size of mushrooms

The measurements given in this book are average values. The size of mushrooms can vary disproportionately due to weather and growing conditions: If it is, for example, very dry, the mushrooms will be smaller than average. On the other hand, if conditions are perfect (humidity, ideal substrate), you might come across surprisingly large specimens.