Mushrooming with Confidence: A Guide to Collecting Edible and Tasty Mushrooms
Genres: Cookbooks & Food & Wine
Book Preface
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 ill—or 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, you’ll 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, you’ll 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. They’re 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 wouldn’t 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 you—not a mycologist—but 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, they’ll 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.
Worm-infested mushrooms
There is no need to discard an otherwise perfect mushroom because of worms. Just cut away the wormy parts. The worm-free pieces are as good as ever—the quality is in no way compromised.
Cutting or pulling?
Cutting mushrooms just above the ground, rather than pulling them up, leaves the mycelium intact. Cutting can actually stimulate the growth of new mushrooms in the mycelium, whereas uprooting can inhibit repeat growth. Sometimes, though, the stem may have features needed for identification, in which case you will have to pull up a specimen.
Raw mushrooms
Some of the mushrooms in this book are only edible after being cooked. Do not eat any wild mushrooms raw as there is a potential risk of catching something nasty from them: Some animals (mice, roe deer) or, worse still, dogs, may have left a mark on them, so avoid busy dog-walking routes.
Contents
How to Use This Guide.
The Mushrooming with Confidence Method
What does “edible” mean?
Learn to leave a mushroom
Look-alike poisonous species
The tools of the trade
Worm-infested mushrooms
Cutting or pulling?
Raw mushrooms
What Is a Mushroom?
Gills, Ridges, Tubes, and Spines
Gills
Ridges
Gills and Ridges in Comparison
Tubes
Spines
Positively Identifying Mushrooms
Mushrooms with Gills
The Field Mushroom
The Wood Blewit
The Shaggy Mane
The Parasol
The Shaggy Parasol
The Oyster Mushroom
The Charcoal Burner
The Amethyst Deceiver
Mushrooms with Tubes
The King Bolete
The Red Cracked Bolete
The Larch Bolete
The Slippery Jack
The Bay Bolete
The Birch Bolete
Mushrooms with Ridges
The Chanterelle
The Trumpet Chanterelle
Mushrooms with Spines
The Hedgehog Fungus
Mavericks
The Morel
The Common Puffball
The Hen of the Woods
The Horn of Plenty
The Cauliflower Mushroom
Trees and Mushrooms
Handling, Storage, and Cooking
Index
| Download Ebook | Read Now | File Type | Upload Date |
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Read Now | EPub, PDF | October 3, 2022 |
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