AGARICUS in Telluride........The so-called experts always warn you to be 100% certain of your identification before you eat any wild mushroom. But what do the experts actually do themselves? Take Agaricus, for example. If the mushroom is growing on the ground, and is a large fleshy mushroom with chocolate brown gills that are clearly free (not attached to) the stem, and theres a well-formed annulus (ring) on the upper stem, well, then, its an Agaricus. Is that enough? Which species is it? Ummmmm. Lets see. At some point, at least in the Telluride area (but not down in Denver or elsewhere in America), folks might smell the mushroom gills to see if theres a medicinal odor, and then, maybe, cut the mushroom lengthwise to see if the base of the stem turns yellow (both indicators of something related to Agaricus xanthodermus - a group of Agaricus species known to cause severe GI symptoms), then, if it does NOT have a medicinal odor or stain yellow at the base of the stem - guess what? - its a done deal - and into the skillet it goes. Is that what experts mean by 100% certainty? Certainly not. But, the GOOD NEWS is that Telluride has a lot of large, fleshy species of Agaricus that are CHOICE to GOOD EDIBLES. For example: A. augustus (the Prince), A. bitorquis, A. campestris, and A. silvicola. Even the red-staining Agaricus amicosus seems to be a good edible. I say seems to be because we dont have a really large random sampling of people eating it. We so-called experts eat it, when we find a lot of it, and nobody has had any GI upsets from it, but does that make it edible for everyone? Stay tuned. If we find enough, well cook it up for everyone at the 35th Telluride Mushroom Festival next year. That should either prove it to be a safe edible OR it might prove to be the last of the Telluride Mushroom Festivals. Come next year and find out!
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 19:18:06 +0000
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