Mycology is a complicated field

[email protected]

Lions mane and chicken of the woods. Grill em, hit em with some garlic butter and lemon pepper. Pretty dang good imo.

Flying Squid

I have not. Thanks.

[email protected]

I’m sorry, that’s rough. I’m not allergic to them, but I can’t digest most animal fats, and it was really difficult before I just went vegan and stopped trying to figure out what would trigger me. “Pretty severe bodily evacuation” is a good way to put it, actually.

Not mushrooms exactly, but fungus. Beer or fresh wines like Federweißer should still have active yeast in them.

I wonder if there’s a distinction between mushrooms and fungus for allergy purposes. AFAIK, “mushroom” is about as broad a category as “leaf,” but maybe there are structures specific to them that you react to.

I assume penicillin is a no go for you, right?

[email protected]

I'm actually not allergic to penicillin at all so now you've got me thinking. It must be a specific kind of mushroom they were referring to in the tests and not all fungi. I certainly haven't had any luck eating any common mushrooms but I'm not sure it's all fungi as I don't have issues with antibiotics and my response to beer is not nearly as bad as when I eat mushrooms.

Sorry you had to go through that as well! I was lucky to be able to get referred to an allergist that dealt with the majority of my environmental allergies with shots at least, but there's not really a way to manage food allergies other than avoiding them.

Lenny

I was you two years ago. Then I took a photo of a strange mushroom and posted it online, only to be told it was a choice lions mane and an incredibly valuable and delicious find. Cue four hours consuming all the resources I could to make sure this thing wouldn't kill me, before eating the tiniest nibble and waiting 24 hours. Yep, it was delicious alright, and because I survived the night, I ate more. I fried it in garlic butter and threw it in soups, I dehydrated it and used it as a thickener. I found more and ate more. Then I learned about chicken of the woods - very distinct with no dangerous lookalikes. Another delicious experience. And so I bought some books. And went on more hikes. Turns out, what I had thought of as danger was just lack of knowledge. I know not to walk in front of a moving car, despite them being all around. Learn what not to eat, learn the ones that can be confused, learn the ones you can't really fuck up IDing, and it's not as scary as it seems.

[email protected]

Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungus, so it could be that you’re allergic to something common to all mushroom gills or volva. In my case, neither the doctors nor I were really interested in testing it all out, because there’s not much of a benefit and exclusion diets are horrible and take forever.

Luckily, it runs in my family (though not as severely as in me), so I was raised without pork or really fatty cuts of meat, which made it pretty easy to isolate. And I don’t know about you, but I find that I have a pretty Pavlovian response to the idea of eating things that make me sick and don’t miss any of it.

[email protected]

I thought I hated mushrooms but it turns out the most common grocery store mushroom is just the worst kind. Crimini/button/portabello it's all Agaricus bisporus and it sucks. Enoki mushrooms opened my eyes and so far I've liked every single mushroom I've tried that isn't that dogshit A bisporus rubbery mud.

[email protected]

I've had a black nightshade berry and I can confirm it tasted like a sweet tomato. I assume the poisonous ones taste similar, if they were bitter then accidental poisonings wouldn't be a big concern.

[email protected]

A muscaria isn't so much a "trip" as it isn't hallucinogenic, it's more of a deleriant and disassociative. Also it's gonna give you stomach cramps. People generally don't eat them for fun.

Space Sloth

"And these, will go great with a pizza AND kill you."

[email protected]

Chanterelle mushrooms are a good one. Delicious, easy to identify, and don't have a deadly lookalike.

WIZARD POPE💫

I guess. But I don't think my family ever had bought mushrooms apart from shiitake and truffles. All the rest were hand picked in the forest.

irelephant 🍭

I mean, I'm not going to pluck a random red berry of a bush and eat it.

[email protected]

Jack O'Lantern Mushrooms: A Poisonous Chanterelle Look A Like

Jack O'Lantern mushrooms also known as foxfire mushrooms or Omphalotus species, are a poisonous mushroom commonly confused with edible chanterelles.

Be careful out there, junior mycologist club members!

[email protected]

From a species that drinks industrial solvents for fun... It doesn't seem quite so implausible.

[email protected]

"Lookalike" is a relative term for sure. With just a little bit of practice one would never confuse the two. It's always best to learn side-by-side with someone who can show you what to look for.

A good rule is this: If you have to double-check with a book (or an app or whatever) to identify the mushroom, you do NOT know it well enough to risk eating it.

[email protected]

Don't shaggy mane grow on manure substrate? They are probably coming up around dog poo or your leach field/septic tank. Delicious mushroom either way!

[email protected]

But you would eat a blueberry right? And that's my point. No one eats a random mushroom from the ground but to say I will not eat any mushroom at all because there is too much risk it a crazy take.

irelephant 🍭

I wouldn't trust a wild blueberry too much ngl.

[email protected]

Not in my yard. While I have hunting dogs, they aren't allowed to run free in the yard without supervision during training exercises. But I do have plenty of deer shit-- I live in the middle of a fairly remote forest.

Most of the shaggy manes grow on a clay hillside that gets lots of leaves in the fall. And they grow nowhere else on my 5 acres of lake shore. The wild raspberries grow everywhere like weeds though. And I don't get bumper crops every year. Sometimes there are none, (wet years), sometimes a small handful, (most years), and sometimes they cover that hillside, (dryer years).