Make No Suppositions

Day 24: There are two phrases you'll hear repeated among mushroomers. The first is that "there are old mushroom hunters and bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters." The second makes the point even more clearly as "all mushrooms are edible, but some are only edible once." I say, "Don't eat anything you can't identify with 105% assurance," and that's why I pass this one by. I know what it is...or at least I know its genus if not the species. At least I think I do. It bleeds a sticky orange sap when broken and otherwise fits the basic profile for Lactarius deliciosus with its carrot-coloured cap marked with green, but I'm just not "105% sure."

I'm reminded of Uncle Eddie, my fishing buddy's brother-in-law with whom we often went 'shrooming. Eddie would collect Rozites, great basketsful of them for canning and drying. I looked them up in half a dozen field guides, but couldn't quite convince myself that Eddie knew what he was talking about. However, if Eddie's eventual demise at a reasonable age was in any part due to liver damage from eating the wrong sorts of mushrooms, it was not apparent to me. Field guides don't always show regional morphological differences, so maybe he was right about Rozites.

My mother used to collect this Lactarius and presumably identified it correctly. Not so with some of the other 'shrooms she gathered! After I discovered that she'd been eating Russulas after having misidentified them as Blewits, I was careful not to eat any mushroom at her house except the Oysters which she dried behind her woodstove. In hindsight, I might have been more cautious. Now I am not "105% sure" she had those right either.

I like mushrooms. I like eating them, but even moreso, I enjoy seeing them in the forests. I do not have the palate to appreciate the distinctions of flavour in different species, so I am more than willing to pass by those which raise even the slightest doubt in my mind as to their identity. I choose to abide by another wise saying, gleaned from the culinary world: "The first bite is with the eye." For me with respect to all but a few species, that first bite is all I need.