Today I found an Amanita muscaria var. guessowii in my front yard. Of course, I had no idea that's what it was when I plucked it from the earth. I've been riding a mushroom obsession since I visited my best friend from sixth grade (forty years ago, in other words) recently after finding her on Facebook, and her German mother sauteed up some fresh mushrooms from her yard with onions in olive oil and served it to me on a toasted English muffin.
In fact, forty years had not been enough time for me to forget this woman's culinary talent. She made a dish so delicious one night when we girls were eleven that I've dreamed about it ever since. After telling her this, she and I both thought it might have been a spaetzle, but it also had dark noodles or something in it, as I recall. Unfortunately, she isn't sure, and she never uses recipes, of course, so the dish lives only in my memory. Those recent mushrooms came close, though.
This wonderful woman, Alice, lived in Germany through the war and scouted for mushrooms to bring home, as food was scarce.Her strategy for determining whether a mushroom is poisonous is whether she sees the bitemarks of little critters on it. "Nature is smarter than we are," she says. However, this is not really a good rule of thumb whatsoever. Turtles, for instance, are known to eat mushrooms poisonous to humans who have died when eating those turtles.
My Audubon Field Guide to Mushrooms warns not to believe any folk tradition for determining a mushroom's edibility. It's true, however, that Miss Alice has lived to the fresh and spry age of 77, eating mushrooms from the German woods and her American lawns from the time she was a child, and I'd eat anything she handed me.
I, however, haven't had the guts to eat anything yet without identifying it first in the Audubon guide or on Roger's Mushrooms, a great site for helping in the ID process. I'll talk more about Miss Alice on a future show, as her story is inspiring, but I must get back to our subject today, photographed with my iPhone:
Isn't it a beaut? I brought the specimen inside, a bit concerned that I'd raped the earth of a spectacular form that should have stayed right where it was. But the base of the stem is helpful in identification, and I was pretty sure I'd seen that mushroom in the yard before.
After some time with my guide, I thought the mushroom most likely an Amanita muscaria, commonly known as "fly agaric." This appellation is due to its use as a fly stupefier. Housewives would mix a little with milk to attract and then dispose of flies.
Audubon states that the mushroom was used by Laplanders for centuries as an intoxicant, and that the dramatic effects had probably first been observed in reindeer, who seek out the 'shroom. However, as with most hallucinagenics and/or intoxicants, too much will kill ... and has. The compound "muscimol" is its main psychoactive constituent, but there are plenty of other chemicals in there doing their magic, whether light or dark.
Of course, I wanted to know more about this beautiful thing. Audubon or Peterson's guides are a great initial source, but their entries are necessarily truncated. The Internet has opened up the world of information, of course; however, the depth of Internet info depends upon the subject, its popularity, and a host of other factors. (True research must be conducted in a library!)
N.B. As a former English professor, I do not recommend Wikipedia as a reliable source. However, the site has become a bit more trustworthy since it began listing sources for its entries. Yet even that is not a guarantee that what you read there is accurate. That's the librarian, or the scholar, or the person with common sense in me.
Anyone can post entries to Wikipedia, and many have posted deliberately false information for their own nefarious reasons. And I can't forget one student's English paper that had MLA documentation down beautifully. However, when I checked a few of his sources, I found that none of them actually stated what he'd written. He'd learned the trick of making what he did look good; it had probably worked for him in high school--who knows, it probably still does. But he didn't get a passing grade on that paper.
That being said, sometimes the easiest way to find out about something is to look at Wikipedia. Because it is authored by anyone and everyone, the information provided often has a broad scope, an advantage to the dilettante as I am in most topics; but, even then, information must be verified, and sometimes actual print resources (gasp!) must be sought.
Wikipedia and its sources tell me that, in Europe, the mushroom's cap is scarlet rather than yellowish-orange and is thus the "quintessential toadstool." Amanita muscaria, in other words, is the model for the red-and-white spotted toadstool in Mario Brothers video games.
The photo above is in the mushroom's early stages; it will later open and level out in a slightly concave (almost flat, but with a little hump in the middle) shape. The mushroom can form into fairy rings, a fact I'm rather thrilled to learn as I'm writing a book for 10-13-year-old girls, and fairy rings play prominently in the plot. Until now, the fairy rings I've seen in photos have always involved rather drab brownish mushrooms. I can now update that mental picture with a much more colorful one.
Readers of Aldous Huxley may remember the calming, nearly tranquilizing drug in Brave New World known as "soma." Interestingly, "soma" also refers to an ancient Vedic ritual of drinking a concoction that gives its imbibers visions--which Huxley undoubtedly knew. In the Rig Veda texts, the drink is made from the stalk of a particular plant. [Take all this with a grain of salt until I can verify it and update this blog.]
The actual plant in the Vedic ritual is not certain. "The American banker and amateur ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson proposed the fly agaric was in fact the Soma [described] in the ancient Rig Veda texts of India; since its introduction in 1968, this theory has gained both followers and detractors in anthropological literature" (Wikipedia). [The source for this information is listed as Furst, Peter T. (1976). Hallucinogens and Culture; I have not, as yet, verified its authenticity, but I will update this when I do. Sounds like a book I would enjoy, so I'm going to order it.]
Soma, by the way, is now the name of a pharmaceutical drug (Carisoprodol), a muscle relaxant that eases pain and probably acts very much like the Soma of literature and history. You have to give today's pharmaceutical industry a little credit. Someone there came up with the name "Soma" for a feel-good drug. That's why they have the right to deplete old and sick Americans' bank accounts. (I need an emoticon for sarcasm.)
I could go on and on about soma, but that's not the topic of this show per se, so let's get back to the 'shroom. I have learned so much about this plant in the past few days that I could go on and on about it. If interested, I recommend you do go to Wikipedia (can't believe I'm saying this) and read more. Just verify what you find there before spewing it out as if you're the most well-read person in your circle. Which I know you would never do, dear viewer. Or post it on your blog, as I just have. Hey, do what I say, not what I do!
The time has gone so fast! I wanted to talk more about the mushrooms and flowers and leaves in my yard--my search for mushrooms in my woods proved difficult because of the fallen leaves, telling me autumn truly has arrived--but perhaps we will on the next episode of The Mary Dell Show. Ciao!
In fact, forty years had not been enough time for me to forget this woman's culinary talent. She made a dish so delicious one night when we girls were eleven that I've dreamed about it ever since. After telling her this, she and I both thought it might have been a spaetzle, but it also had dark noodles or something in it, as I recall. Unfortunately, she isn't sure, and she never uses recipes, of course, so the dish lives only in my memory. Those recent mushrooms came close, though.
This wonderful woman, Alice, lived in Germany through the war and scouted for mushrooms to bring home, as food was scarce.Her strategy for determining whether a mushroom is poisonous is whether she sees the bitemarks of little critters on it. "Nature is smarter than we are," she says. However, this is not really a good rule of thumb whatsoever. Turtles, for instance, are known to eat mushrooms poisonous to humans who have died when eating those turtles.
My Audubon Field Guide to Mushrooms warns not to believe any folk tradition for determining a mushroom's edibility. It's true, however, that Miss Alice has lived to the fresh and spry age of 77, eating mushrooms from the German woods and her American lawns from the time she was a child, and I'd eat anything she handed me.
I, however, haven't had the guts to eat anything yet without identifying it first in the Audubon guide or on Roger's Mushrooms, a great site for helping in the ID process. I'll talk more about Miss Alice on a future show, as her story is inspiring, but I must get back to our subject today, photographed with my iPhone:
 |
| Amanita muscaria, var. guessowii from my yard, 9/24/11 Feel free to use, but I would appreciate an attribution. (Copyright Mary Dell Spalding) |
Isn't it a beaut? I brought the specimen inside, a bit concerned that I'd raped the earth of a spectacular form that should have stayed right where it was. But the base of the stem is helpful in identification, and I was pretty sure I'd seen that mushroom in the yard before.
After some time with my guide, I thought the mushroom most likely an Amanita muscaria, commonly known as "fly agaric." This appellation is due to its use as a fly stupefier. Housewives would mix a little with milk to attract and then dispose of flies.
Audubon states that the mushroom was used by Laplanders for centuries as an intoxicant, and that the dramatic effects had probably first been observed in reindeer, who seek out the 'shroom. However, as with most hallucinagenics and/or intoxicants, too much will kill ... and has. The compound "muscimol" is its main psychoactive constituent, but there are plenty of other chemicals in there doing their magic, whether light or dark.
Of course, I wanted to know more about this beautiful thing. Audubon or Peterson's guides are a great initial source, but their entries are necessarily truncated. The Internet has opened up the world of information, of course; however, the depth of Internet info depends upon the subject, its popularity, and a host of other factors. (True research must be conducted in a library!)
N.B. As a former English professor, I do not recommend Wikipedia as a reliable source. However, the site has become a bit more trustworthy since it began listing sources for its entries. Yet even that is not a guarantee that what you read there is accurate. That's the librarian, or the scholar, or the person with common sense in me.
Anyone can post entries to Wikipedia, and many have posted deliberately false information for their own nefarious reasons. And I can't forget one student's English paper that had MLA documentation down beautifully. However, when I checked a few of his sources, I found that none of them actually stated what he'd written. He'd learned the trick of making what he did look good; it had probably worked for him in high school--who knows, it probably still does. But he didn't get a passing grade on that paper.
That being said, sometimes the easiest way to find out about something is to look at Wikipedia. Because it is authored by anyone and everyone, the information provided often has a broad scope, an advantage to the dilettante as I am in most topics; but, even then, information must be verified, and sometimes actual print resources (gasp!) must be sought.
Wikipedia and its sources tell me that, in Europe, the mushroom's cap is scarlet rather than yellowish-orange and is thus the "quintessential toadstool." Amanita muscaria, in other words, is the model for the red-and-white spotted toadstool in Mario Brothers video games.
The photo above is in the mushroom's early stages; it will later open and level out in a slightly concave (almost flat, but with a little hump in the middle) shape. The mushroom can form into fairy rings, a fact I'm rather thrilled to learn as I'm writing a book for 10-13-year-old girls, and fairy rings play prominently in the plot. Until now, the fairy rings I've seen in photos have always involved rather drab brownish mushrooms. I can now update that mental picture with a much more colorful one.
Readers of Aldous Huxley may remember the calming, nearly tranquilizing drug in Brave New World known as "soma." Interestingly, "soma" also refers to an ancient Vedic ritual of drinking a concoction that gives its imbibers visions--which Huxley undoubtedly knew. In the Rig Veda texts, the drink is made from the stalk of a particular plant. [Take all this with a grain of salt until I can verify it and update this blog.]
The actual plant in the Vedic ritual is not certain. "The American banker and amateur ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson proposed the fly agaric was in fact the Soma [described] in the ancient Rig Veda texts of India; since its introduction in 1968, this theory has gained both followers and detractors in anthropological literature" (Wikipedia). [The source for this information is listed as Furst, Peter T. (1976). Hallucinogens and Culture; I have not, as yet, verified its authenticity, but I will update this when I do. Sounds like a book I would enjoy, so I'm going to order it.]
Soma, by the way, is now the name of a pharmaceutical drug (Carisoprodol), a muscle relaxant that eases pain and probably acts very much like the Soma of literature and history. You have to give today's pharmaceutical industry a little credit. Someone there came up with the name "Soma" for a feel-good drug. That's why they have the right to deplete old and sick Americans' bank accounts. (I need an emoticon for sarcasm.)
I could go on and on about soma, but that's not the topic of this show per se, so let's get back to the 'shroom. I have learned so much about this plant in the past few days that I could go on and on about it. If interested, I recommend you do go to Wikipedia (can't believe I'm saying this) and read more. Just verify what you find there before spewing it out as if you're the most well-read person in your circle. Which I know you would never do, dear viewer. Or post it on your blog, as I just have. Hey, do what I say, not what I do!
The time has gone so fast! I wanted to talk more about the mushrooms and flowers and leaves in my yard--my search for mushrooms in my woods proved difficult because of the fallen leaves, telling me autumn truly has arrived--but perhaps we will on the next episode of The Mary Dell Show. Ciao!
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