The Dear Leader (may her enemies dissolve into the earth) and I just spent a very pleasant weekend at (and around) Higham Hall in the Lakes. For years we've been saying we'd like to know more about the fungi we see on our walks, and finally got around to doing something about it with an introductory course on the topic.
Knowledge of both what and where is clearly vital with this, and course leader Paul had both. He took us to three sites in all, where - with care being taken to be environmentally friendly about the gathering - we picked a surprisingly wide range of fungi, edible and otherwise (though I do like the proverb that all mushrooms are edible, but some only once...). We learned how to identify the genus, and from that to refer to textbooks and identify precisely which fungi we'd found. It was a treasure hunt and a field trip. Given we picked and later identified examples of several fungi that could potentially kill anyone eating them, it was a stark reminder of how dangerous a field (and forest!) this can be.
On the Saturday evening we tasted four of the best edible fungi found that day, suitably prepared by the Hall's cook, and very enjoyable they were too: best for me the chanterelles; then the shaggy inkcap (before it had chance to turn unpleasant), the hedgehog fungus, and a poor last some chunks of puffball.
In future I'll be confident of identifying the chanterelle in particular, if we come across them (and we will be looking), having had the chance to compare it with the species with which it could most easily be confused (the false chanterelle - and that at worst would cause a bit of tummy upset, and learning what nasty others could be taken for it), and to cook and eat them. Probably the hedgehog and the shaggy inkcap too - I wouldn't bother with the puffball again on culinary grounds. If you have not both been on such a course and got the right books to hand, you should not even think of trying to do the same. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT SOMETHING TO JUST 'GIVE A GO'!!!
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