The Magic of Mushrooms

Part of the magic of toadstools is the way in which they suddenly appear in unexpected places. During the current spell of wet weather these blewits Lepista personata have erupted through the soil under a privet hedge in our front garden. It's the first time I've ever seen them in the garden, although about twenty years ago I deliberately introduced some onto an old compost heap, where they produced a crop for a couple of years. 

I'm tempted to cook them because blewits are considered to be good eating by mycophiles, although they also have a reputation for triggering allergic reactions in some people. 

I have a fascinating copy of the second edition of a book published in 1847 by Charles David Badham M.D. entitled A Treatise on the Esculent Funguses of England containing an account of their Classical History, Uses, Characters, Development, Structure, Nutritious properties, Modes of cooking and Preserving etc., - all described in 152 anecdote-filled pages and illustrated with 12 hand-coloured plates. Having travelled in Europe and seen fungus markets and the enthusiasm for eating wild toadstools in Italy, Badham became a passionate advocate of toadstools as food for the poor and described the purpose of his book as being "to furnish the labouring classes with wholesome nourishment and profitable occupation". 

In Badham's day blewits were rather poorly known in England and were just beginning to appear for sale in Covent Garden markets. He gives a recipe for collecting and preparing them, which goes as follows:

"... it is a fine firm fungus with a flavour of veal, like which it is dressed en papillottes with savoury herbs and the usual condiments, and the more highly seasoned the better"

Unfortunately he also says " As the Blewitt is apt to imbibe in wet weather a great quantity of moisture it should not be gathered in rain when water-soaked". Since there's not much sign of the rain stopping, they may no longer be a "fine firm fungus" by the time they've dried out enough to pick, so maybe I'll have to leave them to the maggots that often infest old blewits.

Gastric Russian Roulette?

Mild wet weather has produced plenty of toadstools that I can use to test a recently-purchased copy of Paul Sterry and Barry Hughes' excellent Collins Guide to British Mushrooms and Toadstools. First up was this fine specimen of what I'm pretty sure is a shaggy parasol, which now goes under the name of Chlorophyllum rhacodes. An awful lot of names have changed since I last took a serious interest in toadstools; last time I looked it was Lepiota rhacodes.

It was growing in a oak woodland on the outskirts of Durham city. From this low angle you can see the double ring under the cap and the smooth stem that lacks the scales of the true parasol mushroom, Macrolepiota procera. Both species are edible and the true parasol is said to be excellent, but apparently shaggy parasols cause stomach upsets in some people.There's a surprising number of smaller parasol-related species, collectively known as dapperlings, of variable edibility, including one - Lepiota brunneo-incarnata that's deadly poisonous and contains the same toxin as death cap so, as with all toadstool eating, accurate identification is essential.

I'd always assumed that the brightly coloured Russula species were at best inedible and most likely poisonous but this one, the ochre brittlegill Russula ochroleuca is described as being edible in one of my older field guides - but it is very similar to other much less palatable brittlegill species - and therein lies the problem for the novice mycophage like me. How can you be certain that you're not playing Russian roulette with your gastric system when you venture into the world of toadstool eating? Even some of the supposedly edible species can be treacherously upsetting to some sensitive individuals.

Fortunately the Collins Guide is very good for identification and there's another - John Wright's Mushrooms in the River Cottage Handbook series - that provides and excellent and entertaining guide on what to eat and what to admire from a distance. He has some wonderfully lurid descriptions of the effects of poisonous species, that underline the old adage that 'if you're not certain what it is, don't eat it'

Wright is the most recent in a long line of mycologists advocating the pleasures and benefits of eating wild fungi. I have a fascinating copy of the second edition of a book published in 1847 by Charles David Badham M.D. entitled A Treatise on the Esculent Funguses of England containing an account of their Classical History, Uses, Characters, Development, Structure, Nutritious properties, Modes of cooking and Preserving etc., - all covered in 152 anecdote-filled pages and illustrated with 12 hand-coloured plates, of which one - showing a parasol mushroom - is reproduced below. Having travelled in Europe and seen fungus markets and the enthusiasm for eating wild toadstools in Italy, Badham became a passionate advocate of toadstools as food for the poor and described the purpose of his book as being "to furnish the labouring classes with wholesome nourishment and profitable occupation".

Badham had given up his profession as a doctor, perhaps wisely as he had once raised eyebrows by setting the irregular heartbeat of an ailing patient to music, and had taken holy orders, becoming much moved by the plight of those affected by the great potato famine of 1845-52. In his book he writes "In such rambles [you] will see, what I have this autumn (1847) myself witnessed, whole hundredweights of rich wholesome diet rotting under the trees; woods teeming with food and not one hand to gather it; and this, perhaps, in the midst of potato blight, poverty and all manner of privations, and public prayers against imminent famine". He was, of course, right: wild fungi can be a wonderful potential food source, provided you really know what you're eating.................. but I 'm still not absolutely sure about that yellow-capped Russula in the picture above. Dare I eat it? Maybe not......

 Badham died in 1857 and the manner of his death doesn't seem to be recorded but, given the vagueness of some of his descriptions in his book and the shortage of accurate illustrations, you can't help wondering.....

You can download a digital copy of his book here.

The plates in Badham's book only bear the name of the lithographer, not the artist who was Anna Maria Hussey, a notable mycologist in her own right and sister to the tutor to Charles Darwin's sons.