According to my 1921 edition of Ernest Seton's "The Book of Woodcraft," Mark Twain was the first to offer this tidbit of wisdom regarding mushroom edibility: "Eat them. If you live they are good, if you die they are poisonous." A bit extreme to my way of thinking, but definitely conclusive. The modern version of his philosophy runs, "All mushrooms are edible...once." I have no idea how many wild mushrooms my mother fed me when I was a child, but in hindsight, I feel it's a miracle I'm alive today. As I learned more about mushrooms as an adult, I came to realize that she had badly misidentified some of the fungi she'd been collecting over the years, notably blue-capped Russulas which she called "Blewits." The blue-capped Russula has white gills and a white stipe. Blewits are completely blue. I cringe when I think of the "Oysters" (Pleurotus ostreatus) she dried behind her woodstove. Were any of them actually Angel-wings (Pleurocybella porrigens)? People have been known to live after eating Angel-wings, but they have been involved in several fatalities as well. It's easy to mistake the two. However, one bit of advice my mom instilled in me was that any Bolete with red pores or a red stipe should be considered dangerous. Likewise, if the flesh of a Bolete stains blue when broken, it should be avoided, since some people react badly to them. In the case of Boletus zelleri (above), field guides will tell you that it is reportedly edible, but with a reddish stipe and blue-bruising flesh, I'm not going to give it a try. My mom was right about one thing: better safe than sorry.
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