I know someone who bought a big mushroom at pike place market that was really expensive. Maybe it was a king bolete. Anyway he cut it open at home, and it was full of worms.
An ounce of prevention is better than kidney and liver failure... as they say.
We are lucky, as local farmers here produce fresh Flammulina filiformis (Enoki) for hot-and-sour soups etc.
Have a wonderful day, =3
I know some old and wise mushroom hunters. Some of the best take informed risks. Talk to pros, authorities in the field, and major authors, and they all have some crazy stories.
The safest option is always to stay home and watch TV.
=3
=3
It was one of those weird stories I never could find much information about. =)
It would be terrible being 2 hours away from civilization, and in need of an Epipen.
Have a great day, =3
life is full of risks but undetected parasitic fungi are extremely low on the list. If you know enough to pick edible mushrooms, you can learn not to eat rotten mushrooms.
The complexity is on par with not eating moldy bread or rotten eggs, not rocket surgery.
The recommendation of using repeated sample clones as part of the identification process for agricultural purposes is recommended in Paul Stamets books. He makes several fairly good arguments why you shouldn't gamble with something capable of rapid genetic changes, bioaccumulation, and affecting your immune system in unpredictable ways.
Have a great day, and keep safe out there =)
Anyone can "Try Anything Once", but a few forget to ask if they should...
Good luck, =)
Have a wonderful day, =3
E.g. chanterelles are usually big enough to pick in 2-3 days. When I used to pick them growing up, we'd usually avoid the older ones, as they weren't worth the hassle of cleaning and cutting away bad parts.
Bugs is mostly a problem when picking bigger/slower growing ones. That's not to say it doesn't happen with others, but it's not really an issue.
The problem with sticking to cultivation is how few mushroom types are reliably cultivated at anything approaching reasonable prices.
Most of the options cultivated at scale bore me.
Buggy mushrooms are still edible, but high end culinary mushrooms are typically low bug. He should have asked them them to cut it open.
Source: amateur hunter. Probably collect 2-300 lbs of Boletes/year. I eat a lot of bugs.