What's for Dinner?

[sad_winslow]

Originally Posted by classicman

What part of the world are you in? There are typically a couple "no brainers" in every climate/area that are easy to go with. Take a walk and post some pics. For edibles, I only eat maybe 5-6 different kinds. I have some which are only good to dry and then use in soups or as a spice of sorts.

Fascinating, isn't it? The amanita's are one of my favorite killers. If you are into reading about them, the Audubon book is a fantastic one with which you can start.

Oh, there's mushrooms to be had around here, for sure. I'm in California, not too far from Sacramento. All sorts of goodies can be found if you know where to look, particularly if you scoot in closer to the coast and start heading north. Chanterelles, king boletes, morels, even matsutakes all stretch from here up through Oregon. December-ish is supposed to be a really good time to go looking, though you have to watch out for competition with their iphones and tight pants and bad facial hair.

We actually had a mushroom poisoning a couple years ago in Sacramento that was a pretty big deal, when a caregiver for some elderly cooked up a meal that killed a couple old folks and made a few more people (including themselves, iirc) deathly ill. Some of the local deadlies are apparently pretty similar to perfectly edible varieties in Eastern Europe. Oops.

Amanitin toxicity is pretty interesting, but I'm more amused by Gyromitra (one of the false morels) poisoning. Gyromitrin quite readily breaks down into a chemical called monomethylhydrazine, a substance that makes a very good propellant for spacecraft (usually for manuvering thrusters) but does not make a very good propellant for human metabolisms. IIRC not only is it pretty highly toxic, but if you do survive it's still a carcinogen, so good luck with that.