A cat is not a guinea-pig. Repeat.

[desperance]

All my life, I've been a fan of fungi. In the wild or on the plate, I love 'em. I want to grow closer, I want to know them; especially, of course, I want to bring them home and eat them. Safely.

I have established a habit in recent years, where I find a fungus and bring it home, use my book to try to figure out what it is and whether it's edible. Um. I have never actually succeeded in this - nothing ever looks quite like the illustration, unless I'm just not finding the right illustration - but I still think it's a noble effort.

I may have to abandon it.

I found a little brown flat-capped mushroom in the cemetery today. Fungus that feeds on bodies! Super-cool! I brought it home, and couldn't find my book - and then there was suddenly a chirrup at my feet, and an eruption of cat onto the bread-bin. I haz a shroom! Mac wants it! Chirrup! Snatch!

If I can't tell whether it's safe for me, how on earth can I tell if it's safe for cats? There isn't even a book for that...

So no, Mac did not get the mushroom. Neither did I; it went into the compost, all unidentified, alas.

And no, I did not for a moment think of feeding it to the beastie as an experiment, on the principle that if he could eat it, it must be safe for me. That would be both morally appalling and scientifically unsound.

I did vaguely think that if he spurned it, that would be a useful guide that I should spurn it too - but then of course he didn't spurn it, and I decided not to treat his enthusiasm as a sign of beneficence. I don't think he's reliable that way.

Comments

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Sir, I thank you on Mac's behalf, because I know he's still wondering where the delicious new fungus went.

Bob's still not purring, although he's now perching where he can watch the moneky.

[footlingagain.livejournal.com]

I've found this (http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/british-fungi)really helpful and fascinating. It helped me identify the bizarre yolky things breaking through at the bottom of the silver birch stump the other day. (Gomphidius glutinus, since you ask *g*)

And if you should be walking with the LHP and if there should be a wifi hotspot nearby, and if you haven't collapsed from exhaustion because of lugging the LHP for miles, you can identify them where you are. Or you could take your book on the walk, I suppose, and save yourself from back trauma.

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

And of course a cat wouldn't let you eat the strange fungus first as a test either, but that's more because they're not good at the Sharing Thing.

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

One day Jim ate some white mushrooms he thought were common and harmless. They were on my front lawn, which was also the front lawn of a dental practice--this will be significant later on.

Jim was seized within a few hours with nasty stomach cramps and other symptoms of having eaten something toxic.

My first thought was, uncharitably, "I was right about eating stuff you find on the lawn." My second was "oh, f**k, Jim's gonna die of mushroom poisoning."

He survived. They were in fact harmless mushrooms, of themselves--but they'd come from a heavily treated lawn serviced regularly by men with chemicals. Jim had eaten a goodly helping of weedkiller, most likely.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

Find someone who wanders in forests near you. I did that. I found there was only one reliably safe type of mushroom in the ACT (too many lookalikes for my level of knowledge) and my forestwanderer also taught me how to spot safe places to pick. Fungi pick up everything from the surrounds and the peatiness of damp soil tastes lovely, but cat urine apparently does not.

Dora (my wanderer) told me that the exercise should be repeated for every region you want mushrooms from ie local knowledge is key. She also told me that those identification books are really handy as a reminder, once you know what you're doing.

I lost the habit of picking mushrooms when my friends moved away from the pine forests. A sadness.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you - even as I posted about my primitive and inadequate book, it occurred to me to remember that the internet is my friend...

And one of the (many!) joys of the LHP is that it only weighs a kilo. It's probably lighter than the book.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

My dad was a mushroom hunter. I begged him several times to teach me about it, but my mom always vetoed the idea on the grounds that I was too stupid to remember what I was taught and would sooner rather than later make a fatal mistake with it. He was a treasure trove of odd knowledge and antique skills. His recipe for soap started with "first you burn some good hardwood into ash. . ." Thanks for reminding me of Dad today. :)

[anef.livejournal.com]

We used to go mushrooming when I lived in Brighton. Nature reserves are good places to find edible ones, but you need to go early in the morning before other mushroom hunters are around. We used to pick one of all the ones we weren't sure about, and then laid them all out on newspaper when we got home and went through The Mushroom Book until we'd identified them. I thought The Mushroom Book was by Roger Phillips, but in fact it's by Thomas Laessoe and Anna del Conte. But I do have a smallish paperback Phillips which I think we must have carried around with us. Happy days!

[maeve-the-red.livejournal.com]

My dad taught me to identify fungi that taste good when fried in butter. My hippie friends taught me to identify fungi that make you giggle. I am proud of both these skills.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Damn, can I borrow you sometime? Those are exactly the skills that I pine for. And do not have. (My student friends used to wander the moor in search of magic mushrooms. I got cheerfully out of my tiny tree on the results of their gleaning, but I never actually went with them. And these days, alas, they spray the moor with something assassinatory...)

[maeve-the-red.livejournal.com]

I'd offer to take you on a fungal foray, but I have an idea you live in the Big Wicked City, while I'm way out in rural Hampshire.

Actually these days the only shrooms we get round here are the tasty but less interesting ones. Those perky little liberty caps seem to have gone the way of squidgy Moroccan black. I suspect a government conspiracy ...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I'd offer to take you on a fungal foray, but I have an idea you live in the Big Wicked City, while I'm way out in rural Hampshire.

Not so big, but thoroughly wicked: I'm in Newcastle. On Tyne, which is a distance from Hampshire; it may be a distance and a half.

On the other hand, I have friends (pennski! and bookzombie!) somewhere in Hampshire, who are threatening to put up with me at some point. Hmmm...

And oh, Moroccan black - now I'm coming over all nostalgic. And temple balls, those too. The kids today with their skunk'n'stuff, they know nothing...

[(Anonymous)]

If you're ever down this way, drop us a line (via www.jainefenn.com) and I can maybe emerge from my garret long enough for us to meet up.

[maeve-the-red.livejournal.com]

Aargh ... that was me, unsigned in, and not a random stalker. It's too damn early. And now I have to go pack to go even further west.