Mushroom foraging

This on my allotment, looks rather edgy. Left it well alone.

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😲
What are the blue/mauve ones ?

Lovely pics .

The really bright ones are amethyst deceivers, the duller ones I think are wood blewits

Another key ID is that I'm high

Hahaha, well that's brilliant 🥳

😉

It’s a really good year for Amethyst deceivers

I have seen A. Phalloides in the wild a couple of times and I only go out foraging a couple of times a year.

Been meaning to get into foraging for a while and feel like this could be the year. Spotted last weekend, wasn't giving off edible vibes.

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As a rule would very much caution against eating anything on the basis of ‘edible vibes’ 😉

Consider myself warned

As a rule would very much caution against eating anything on the basis of ‘edible vibes’ 😉

@jambon That's a fly agaric, some people eat them but they're much braver than me. They have to be prepared very well over a period of hours else they fuck you up. Not a hallucinagen but they will make you trip A bit like being drunk and probably shit your pants.

And there I was thinking posting here would encourage me. Yeah will definitely do a lot of reading before eating anything. Thanks.

Keep posting! You found one of the UK’s most easily recognisable and, arguably, visually stunning mushrooms. Eaten by berserkers before running into battle, possibly for their rageful effects but equally possibly to give them an excuse for shitting their pants.

Thanks a lot, this was found in the grounds of the RSPB head office near where I live. They have a big estate. If there's any good reference books I'm all ears, I've heard good reports about Roger Phillips - Mushrooms.

I’ll defer to others on field guides. In general, the more photos and drawings, the better. Taking note of habitat is also important for identification, so notes or photos in the field are better than laying your foraged haul out on a table and opening your book.

The challenges of mushroom identification and their often contested taxonomy are addressed in Merlin Sheldrake’s recent, excellent, book ‘Entangled Life’. Probably my book of the year.

I hope I didn't seem discouraging, I was just trying to stop you shitting your pants.. haha. I have the Roger Phillips book, it is great but massive so a smaller book like the River Cottage mushroom book is great as you can take it out. It has a handy list of questions to narrow down what you are identifying.

I also use the Wild Food UK site for pointers.

Thanks so much for all the tips and advice, like you say it's not something you want to get wrong. Really appreciate it. Will likely put both books on my Christmas list if I can wait that long. Ta!

You also need a beautiful mushroom knife, obviously! This one is amazing: https://www.opinel.com/en/multifunction/n8-mushroom-knife

Any of these edible?

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All in Chalet Wood in Wanstead btw

With mushrooms there seems to always be a minuscule risk of misidentification. Keeping a sliver or at least a pic seems like good risk management. Are there other useful strategies, aside from ID’ing as carefully as possible?

Any of these edible?

As @Skülly posted last week...

All mushrooms are edible. But some only once.

Only eat a little bit to test. Chilli heat or guts turning inside out are both generally considered to be bad.