TEST

Every seasoned wild mushroom hunter is familiar with this concept.  If you just plan to start dabbling into this activity please be aware that 90% of the wild mushrooms you find is unusable for various reasons : too small (young) too old too damaged by bugs or animals (primarily snails) known poisonous species or sickener known inedible (tasteless, bitter etc) The first three on the list are basically what I call "Mushrooming Window". Small (Young) The young specimens are almost always better for consumption. Even grocery shop charges you more for buttons. But there is a point when too young mushroom is not really safely identifiable. This is true for early button stage of majority of species. It is recommended to leave any mushroom in the very early stage of development, unless you are absolutely positive about identity of the specimen. For example, it would be a bad mistake to take Amanita button for puffball. Old The old attribute greatly varies with differe...

In my years of walking the trails and foraging I met all kinds of people. After disclosing that I am actually looking for mushrooms the most common reaction is fear and surprise. I would like to point out that this reaction is typical for North America. In Europe situation is quite different (especially Eastern Europe). Usual questions are: "Don't you know they can kill you?" "There are so many; how can you be sure which one is not poisonous?" Well, the way I see it I need to be sure only about two dozen of species, which does not sound so bad. Why? True, there is a thousands of species around, a great number not yet described and classified. In Ontario there is approximately a dozen dangerously poisonous mushrooms and dozen good edibles. You probably wander what do I mean by "dangerously poisonous". Majority of field guides published in North America lists a great number of species as "poisonous", probably a lot more than "inedible...