Any mushroom experts out there? This one looked pretty tasty to me!

[Duckshot]

I'm kinda curious about pheasant backs. I see bushels of them in the spring. At least I think they are pheasant back. I am curious what they taste like but I am also reasonably terrified of misidentification.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerioporus_squamosus

I'll eat chanterelles, morels, and sometimes giant white puffball(I don't particularly care for puffball). Other than that I am very timid.

 

[fistfulladirt]

There is a mushroom called the drunkards mushroom. It causes your body not to be able to metabolize alcohol. Makes you sick. That might be what you're think of.
It kind of looks like a morel.

Do you have more info on this? I can't find a single thing on the web, except for the false morel.

 

[pepperj]

Lots of these growing out in my forest right now singles and this group, that's a size 13 boot.

 

[hvacker]

I used to find a species of if memory serves "Sparassis" on oak trees in the fall. They were the size of a cauliflower.
A slice would take up a big fry pan and they were really tasty.
The last time I brought one home I started to carve up some slices and a zillion centipedes ran out all over the kitchen
running for the walls. What a mess and me dancing around trying to step on as many as I could.

There are some wild mushrooms that won't be easily mistaken. Morels, puff balls, inkies are easy to ID. There is a false morel but it's ugly compared to the real one. The Amanita's are the most mistaken because hunters often confuse when in the button stage. Except for the Amanita muscaria, the usually red one with what looks oatmeal sprinkled on top. The one often illustrated on children's books. Like a caterpillar with a hookah.

 

[seekerGH]

To the OP, that is a typical bracket or shelf fungus, and is not edible. Some people do use them for carving.

Pepper...yes, Carolina Tom is correct, that is a Chicken of the Woods, not to be confused with a Hen of the Woods!

The so called drunkards mushroom (tipplers bane) is an inky cap, it is not poisonous unless you drink alcohol. ( I dont think it looks like a morel, and wouldnt eat them even I wasnt drinking)

EDIT:

I'm kinda curious about pheasant backs.

Other places they are called Hawks Wings, but the other name Dryad Saddle, is probably more descriptive of the taste/edibility. You could spend time boiling down some young specimens for a broth, but it does not take long for them to be the proverbial leather saddle.

 

[hvacker]

To the OP, that is a typical bracket or shelf fungus, and is not edible. Some people do use them for carving.

Pepper...yes, Carolina Tom is correct, that is a Chicken of the Woods, not to be confused with a Hen of the Woods!

The so called drunkards mushroom (tipplers bane) is an inky cap, it is not poisonous unless you drink alcohol. ( I dont think it looks like a morel, and wouldnt eat them even I wasnt drinking)

EDIT: Other places they are called Hawks Wings, but the other name Dryad Saddle, is probably more descriptive of the taste/edibility. You could spend time boiling down some young specimens for a broth, but it does not take long for them to be the proverbial leather saddle.

I didn't know the inky reacted with alcohol. Back when I ate them I also didn't drink alcohol so maybe why I had no bad reaction.
A really delicate flavor but if I didn't pick them at the right time they would live up to their name and become a puddle of black goo.

I knew an old time farmer in N. Ill that would allow people to pick mushrooms on his pasture. Once, when I talked to him, he told of two hunters that had died from the poison. Said they liked to find "farmers mushrooms"(Agaricus campestris?) when buttons. Even though very experienced they made a mistake.

 

[lookindown]

Too many things to eat to be taking chances on something that might be poison.

 

[Duckshot]

Too many things to eat to be taking chances on something that might be poison.

Yeah maybe here and now. But somebody someplace some time ago was awful darn hungry enough to think- "yeah. I'm going to put that thing in my mouth an eat it".

Some species like morels, chanterelles, and giant puffballs are easy to identify and hard to mistake for similar looking mushrooms so long as you study the possible imposters as well as the desired species. And yes there are similar looking but toxic mushrooms in the case of morels and chanterelles.

If you don't know what it is, don't even touch it much less eat it.

 

[Truth]

Last time I ate a mushroom like that I saw colors for 3 days.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[hvacker]

People everywhere have always eaten what ever they found. They were no different from any explorer. Any exploration might carry a danger.
I once hunted wild eatable plants. I was showing/teaching a group in a meadow and I saw a woman pick a berry and eat it.
I knew she had no idea what it was or if it was safe. I remember thinking "That's how we learn." No point in saying anything and spoil a learning experience.
I live on a high desert mesa. In my yard alone there are 2 plants that will either get you sick or get you high then get you sick (Deadly Nightshade & Jimson Weed AKA Thorn Apple,Datura, Moon Flower. I'm thankful to all those that have gone before me and found this knowledge. Many the hard way.
Even our mythology. I believe Santa Claus began as Lapland Shaman. The myth includes along with the magic, the reindeer and the ability to fly. Not unlike a magic carpet or astral projection.
The Shaman showed that the gift under the tree was a mushroom growing under an evergreen. The mushroom I believe was the Amanita muscaria.
The experience from eating this mushroom has been described as "Not soon forgotten".
I consider these plants as gifts to other worlds for an explorer of the mind. The mind will always be the final frontier.

 

[Honest Samuel]

Be safe. Eat only mushroom that you purchase in stores.

 

[hvacker]

Be safe. Eat only mushroom that you purchase in stores.

Samuel I'm sure, having lived as long as you have, that life isn't always about being safe. Risk/Reward
Some of the stuff sold in stores can get you sick too. Like chicken or ice cream recently.

 

[Bum Luck]

People will believe what they want to believe, but there is a fortune be made from them.

Then there are the pesky things called facts which no one wants to hear about.