Mushroom Picking..is russian roulette????

It’s Russian roulette. It’s an absolute death sentence. It’s also just plain stupid. Do you know how many decent, seemingly intelligent folks have died from eating wild mushrooms? I had a friend who knew this guy and he even happened to be a freakin’ mycologist none the less, who picked the wrong mushroom, fed it to his family and yup…they all died. Gone forever. Their livers just melted away to nothing; a slow painful agonizing ordeal. In fact, mushrooms are so difficult to identify that even experts cannot tell them apart.




By the way, the above sentences are mostly RUBBISH. Embellished stories like the one above run rampant from the toungs of warning parents and authority figures who may or may not have good intentions. There may be truth to some of the details in these tales but they never fail to be full of emotion and exageration. I bet the wee scottish lady below new what to eat and what to leave, without any books or google.

The truth is… you can tell mushrooms apart in the same way that you can tell apples and bananas from each other. Not convinced? Ok, how about this…What if all apples were actually deadly poisonous except for the “red delicious” variety and those happen to be well…delicious. I bet we would do well to not make the mistake of picking the poisonous apples. After all, the red delicious have those funny little bumps on the bottom. Easy right?

Of course a few of us would be so damn eager to eat anything that remotely resembled the red delicious that they would in fact, perish. For the most part however, careless mistakes would not happen all that often. After handling so many red delicious apples and after knowing there distinctive sheen, shape, scent and texture, you would simply trust that that it is in fact what it is. You have ultimately created a mental personality of the species. Now you can recognise red delicious apples instantly. The same is true for wild mushrooms or any wild plant that you really, really know.

Every year I go to the same spot to harvest the prized golden chanterelles. (Of course I’m not gonna tell you where that is, unless you find my secret wild fungi map at Highland Holiday Cottages) The aroma is distinctive; almost fruity like apricots. The flavor is so unique and the texture not much harder then the butter that they’re cooked in. It’s no wonder that they are priced so highly. Of course part of that steep price is probably due to the fact that this kind of mushroom cannot be mass-produced. We haven’t cracked that code which makes the hunting rewards that much more special

There’s so much hype about wild mushrooms and the deadly game of catching them that it can be a real hindrance to folks that really want to learn. It is true that people have died from eating the wrong mushrooms and there are several mushrooms out that there that will make you sick, and even a few that will most certainly kill you but compared to the blind trust that we buy our mainstream marketed food with, wild mushroom hunting seems a fairly safe activity given a few ground rules. You would certainly be more likely to get killed in a ski accident on the Cairngorms then mistake a poisonous mushroom from one of its delectable cousins. Of course, that is provided that you pay attention to what you’re looking at and make note of what makes each family and each species unique. There’s always a way to tell them apart. Sometimes the differences are small and sometimes they are as obvious as white snow and yellow snow.

If you would like to know more htem just email me or comment on the blog. If you fancy hunting down some fungi then why not come and sdtay at Highlandd Holiday Cottages or Looking for self-catering accommodation? W hy not check out http://www.cairngormsholidaycottages.com/ for some great selfcatering ideas.

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