Safeto Pick - Edible Mushrooms: Safe to Pick, Good to Eat

SHAGGY INK CAP.

, PARASOL MUSHROOM.

Copyright 2012 by Barbro Forsberg and Stefan Lindberg

English Translation 2014 by Skyhorse Publishing

First published in 2012 as Matsvampar by Barbro Forsberg and Stefan

Lindberg, Bonnier Fakta, Sweden

Text, graphic design, and scanning of mushrooms by Barbro Forsberg

Photography and reprographics by Stefan Lindberg

Facts checked by Michael Krikorev

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-62873-644-1

Printed in China

Contents

A LOVE OF PICKING

THE HUMIDITY IS high and our pots and pans simmer away. Scores of mushrooms are cleaned and left to soak while our woodstove is working at maximum capacity.

Suddenly, a dragging sound from the larder makes us raise our heads from the mounds of mushrooms.

Swish, swoosh... splat!

What are these strange, poltergeist sounds? They have a rational explanation; steam from the boiling mushrooms causes the wallpaper to release rapidly from the stone wall. One strip has already piled on the floor, and several more have come loose up near the ceiling. They look like theyre about to fall down at any minute. Soon the whole wall is bare; undressed, hot, and all shiny from the damp.

THIS IS JUST one of many mushroom-collecting memories. Simply put, we are mushroom maniacs and we love picking, cleaning, and eating mushrooms.

Its exciting to test edible mushrooms that youve never tried before, but sometimes it can be hard to identify them using regular mushroom guides. This is why weve made a book thats slightly different. Weve included forty edible mushrooms that we have gotten to know over the years, and we hope that the average mushroom picker will dare to try some of these mushrooms that they might not have tasted before. These fungal treasures create such heavenly tastes.

Barbro Forsberg

Stefan Lindberg

MUSHROOMS FOR PICKING

IN THIS BOOK we have selected forty mushrooms that are safe to pick and that taste good. Thats not very many when you consider that there are 5,000 mushroom types with a visible fruiting body (the part of the mushroom that is picked) in the United States alone and of these, only a few hundred are considered to be good, edible mushrooms.

All mushrooms consist of a network of fine threads underneath the earth, the mycelium, which obtain nutrients via organic material, dead or alive.

Mushrooms are divided into different groups depending on where they get their nutrients. Mushrooms that live off of, and break down, dead organic matter are called saprophytes and they play a vital part in nature. Within this group there are several tasty edible mushrooms, such as the St. Georges and the Parasol Mushroom.

Mycorrhizal mushrooms have a symbiotic relationship with living plants, which are their hosts. The mycorrhizal mushrooms get their food from these plants in exchange for providing the plant with water and minerals. The mushrooms mycelium works as an extension of the plants root system, thereby creating a successful symbiosis between plant and mushroom.

A Velvet Boletes fruiting body.

Under the earths surface we find the vegetative part that creates the fruiting bodies that are picked. The white stuff is the mycelium of a Velvet Bolete that is growing out from the roots of a pine tree, giving the tree an increased rate of nutrient absorption.

If you are unsure of the type of mushroom you have, you can determine the color of the spores. Place the mushroom with the surface that creates the spores face down on black or white paper (depending on the color you are expecting the spores to be). Cover the mushroom so the spores dont fly around the room. After a few hours, a deposit of spores will have fallen onto the paper. The photo to the left shows the spores from the St. Georges mushroom, which are white, in contrast to its poisonous look-alike, the Livid Agaric, which has a pink spore print.

Most edible mushrooms are mycorrhizal mushrooms and are attached to various types of trees. The Chanterelle, for example, grows with both coniferous and deciduous trees while the Slippery Jack only has one host, the pine tree.

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A lone mycelium can produce a vast number of fruiting bodies within a limited area and it is here that the spores are created and dispersed to create new mushrooms.

Determining the Species

THE SPECIES OF mushrooms that are unique in their appearance are easy to learn, while those that have several look-alikes take a bit longer to get to know.

Its a good idea to own several mushroom books so you can compare the pictures and descriptions. Make sure the books are less than ten years old, as new discoveries are constantly being made and some mushrooms might be re-evaluated and defined as edible where they were once inedible and vice versa.

If you use all your senses, i.e. memorize the smell and the feel of each mushroom, you will eventually get to know a group of edible mushrooms and you can skip poring through your guidebook every time you come home from picking mushrooms.

A spore print is always a good idea if you want to be completely sure that its not a poisonous look-alike and you can find out how to do this in the photo and text at the bottom of .

Its harder to distinguish between some types of gilled mushrooms (agaricales), especially Russulas . Many look so alike that it can require microscopic examination to be completely sure. Thankfully, there are few poisonous Russulas but some of them taste bad and are not considered edible. How to recognize and taste test a Russula is described on .

We have chosen not to present the edible wild white meadow mushrooms ( Agaricus ) in this book (and yes, there are poisonous white mushrooms). This is mainly due to the fact that each year there are several mistakes made between the Destroying Angel and wild white meadow mushrooms. Besides, you can just as easily buy the cultivated ones cheaply in the supermarket.