The Fungus Among Us (A Savory Tale)
This title recalls the callow high school student of yesteryear, giving what were known as "oral reports" on some science subject before the class. The rhyming of "fungus" and "among us" would apparently bring a peal of laughter. The reader of the report would grow a red face.
When touched with certain chemicals, so don't some mushrooms. Many of the genus Russula have deep red caps that are a natural part of its coloration - much like our embarrassed student. But the coloration range of some of the most edible mushrooms runs the full gamut. From parti-colored yellows, every shade of brown, to black, red (from pink to crimson); orange, and even purple.
How do you know which ones are non-poisonous? Ah: there's a good question. For those who haven't had a mushroom culture passed down to them in expert-laden words such as, "oh, those are harmless," then do not attempt to even use a field guide to find out which is which. Your chances of making a perfect match between a field guide photo or drawing and what you find in the woods is a bootless and potentially dangerous exercise in gormandizing ( not to mention in practical natural history).
This year in some semi-wild wooded areas of Peabody and Lynn, the paths around ponds and lakes exploded with edible fungi. It was the most I had ever remembered seeing here. A Ukrainian-immigrant great grand uncle of mine who mined these woods of its berries and mushrooms half a century and more ago was familiar with perhaps more bounteous times. (There were more fields then, too.) Such outbreaks of mycological (big word for mushroom / fungi science) plentitude caused him to march up there even in his late eighties, bagging huge quantities of pancake-colored Boletes and Russulas. (His words for what he picked were in Ukrainian: no help for my field guide and me. Nor you. So I won't repeat them.)
I just know which ones are ok from his old descriptions of what to look for: brownish stems that were fat were ok. The consistency of the cap, its texture, if you will, decided if one was better than the other. Yes, this is what I do to collect any main batch. But for exact reassurance, I have a godfather - who was closer to that great grand uncle than I - who can identify the "good eaters" (and safe ones) at a glance. Shown to him fresh, he can size up the whole mess and say, "yeah, these are good." You just have to trust him. He'd been gathering these things thirty years before I was born, scraping the cap's insides, drying (or pickling) and eating them. That's just how it's done in mushroom culture. Otherwise, prepare to get a degree in biology with a concentration in early forms of plant life.
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