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Old 08-28-2004, 04:32 PM   #114
Rakarin
Antagonistic Antagonist
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 21
Quote:
Originally Posted by busterb
Any of the :Experts" know if these are the eating, somking, or tea making kind of fungus, mushrooms?
It looks like a kind of wood ear. Very few are poisonous. However, most have a taste ranging between dirt and wood, and a texture ranging between balsa wood and leather. (Most wood ears have too little soft portion to be edible, unless very young, except the gills, which tend to be edible.)

Ironically, I really dislike mushrooms, but when I was much younger, fate managed to put several articles and books about mushrooms in my hands. I ended up reading them to add detail to my DnD game.

Another useful trick which I learned about some mushrooms: the alkalide toxins tend to turn silver a very nasty black in minutes. I know this works with the angel cap mushroom (very deadly), and I'm pretty sure this works with the death cap (very similar to morrels, one of the few mushrooms I eat, but quite deadly). While not the difinitive test, this works with something like 40-50% of poisonous mushrooms, including the ones that cause the most common poisonings in North America. Many... not "myconologists"... "mycophiles"?... have a silver cooking spoon for this purpose. If you stirr and it turns black, dispose of the food immediately, and clean the pots and cooking utensils outside with the hose and bleach (and vinegar?).
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