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| You can eat these and not die |
For Tea-Partyin' Gardeners Who Wanna Kick It Up a Notch.
by R. DeAngelo
Dispatch 1:
I Shot the Death Cap
Tuesday, 12:46 pm.
Cutting the grass.
Spot red and yellow blob at northwest corner of lawn.
Peer down at it. Observe its surroundings. Note its habitat. Pick it carefully, leaving some of the stem.
It is, I believe, a Bitter Bolete. Or a Red-Mouthed Bolete. Boletes are in the mushroom family, but mycologists* call them by their taxonomy.
I abandon mowing and take the red thing inside. Consulting Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America*, I learn that it is neither. I mean, it's not a Bitter Bolete Or a Red-Mouthed Bolete, but a Two-Colored Bolete, and according to the description in my book, delicious. I place it next to the beige Platterfuls my husband collected yesterday morning from our neighbor's property. That's the edible pile. We're gonna cook 'em.
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| Death Cap: Don't eat these |
On the other side of the kitchen counter we have the NOT EDIBLE pile, as indicated by the post-it note. This is our foraging house of horrors. In this pile is a wizened, pock-marked, two-inch-tall, greenish-yellow mushroom called Amanita Phalloides. Also known as Death Cap. I found the Death Cap among a small grove of three last week while mowing the lawn. I initially thought it to be the edible Honey Mushroom, but I know better than to pick and bite. Especially after my experience in the White Mountains. More on that in Dispatch 2. So here I am peering down at this green-yellow mushroom. I do not pick this one. I abandon mowing and run inside to get the book.
"Description: The cap surface is yellowish green to yellowish brown; it is smooth overall, but has tiny, dark, flattened hairs over the center. The cap it initially dome shaped, expanding until nearly flat; it is 2.5-6 inches wide. The cap flesh is white and has a slightly disagreeable odor..."
Check.
"Fruiting: the Death Cap is found singly or in groups, sometimes in great numbers... its range is apparently spreading. A few decades ago, it was known only from California; it has since been found in Oregon and Washington... and parts of eastern North America."
Check.
"Toxicity: As its common name implies, the Death Cap is fatally poisonous."
YES.
I run downstairs for the camera. I go back outside and shoot the Death Cap: from the top, from the side, from down in the grass; its underside, its cap, the torn volva on its stem. I get 13 pictures, which I label by date and study lovingly in iPhoto for a while, before uploading to Rogers Mushrooms dot com, an online visual encyclopedia of mushrooms and other living stuff that anyone can use, free, to figure out whether the mushroom you just ate was poisonous.
* those who have nothing better to do than study mushrooms
* By David W. Fischer and Alan E. Bessette. University of Texas Press, Austin. All descriptions from the book.
Stay linked for:
Dispatch 2:
Near Death in The White Mountains
July 14, 2011
Dispatch 3:
Hen of the Woods with Butter and Garlic
July 21, 2011
Dispatch 4:
The Polyphore
Dispatch four, the polyphore! Dispatch four, the polyphore!
August 2011
