Don't take any chances with mushrooms, I'd get a book from the library & check. There are lots of varieties that are edible but you need to be sure that's what you've got.

g'day wishful,

you do need to excercise caution and yes if they have eaten a whole bucket of exactly what they gave you and are still alive and kicking you are going to be pretty safe.

but with any wild food you need to know what to look for yourslef so you can be certain, if you do a search online you could find a wild mushroom eaters club, join them and learn it is the best way, even better than books as pictures can at times be misleading, adn in nature no one picture can reperesent all phases of any one plant, in the variety of growing conditions. but a book would be better that going it alone.

i have a friend who knows his mushies and he scares me when we ahd the rporperty he would look at something at asks me what it was i would say toadstool becaue i don't know its safe to eat, he would inspect it and then eat it and tell me it was safe, that's how i learnt more than what i already knew.

basically the safe mushies are those with the pink to dark/maroon sort of colour underneath, they are all safe, but then some of the others are as well, and then some of the safe ones are better eaten for flavour after they have been open a couple of days or so before picking othe need to be picked fresh on the first morning early.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

hi len! good to see you again!

"safe mushies are those with the pink to dark/maroon sort of colour underneath"

as opposed to what colour the unsafe ones have? I wouldn't call these maroon so much as brown - but they look exactly the same as the mushrooms I buy from the shops

g'day wishful,

yeh we all percieve colour description somewhat differently a brownish colour with a tinge of dark pink maybe? generally the poison ones look downright ugly and stink they are generally a white or dirty white underneath, although one edible i know of is quiet white all over but very light flavour.

you should realy pick your own once you know what to look for or eat from others pics if you trust them implicitly, one of the gardeners over at ausgarden posted some pics of mushies in her yard they are edibles but she wasn't game because of a past mistake.

if you could post some pics that will give me an idea but i still don't recommend unless i have actually picked them or have knowledge and at this stage you probably need more knowledge.

just a mistake can be pretty horrendous and you will never go that way again.

you will be pretty safe if they look like the store bought ones.

did you search out a club yet?

len

I would think that the mushrooms that next door grew from mushroom compost would be ok. They are from the family Agaricus and with pink or brown gills with a white top they are edible. See the second picture in the link. However, if the gills are white and they look like the same Agaricus mushroom they are poisonous. I used to go mushroom picking with my mother when I was little and we are all still here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Agaricus

Hi Wishful,
On mushrooms in general, join a club. Its the easiest way not to kill yourself. Australia has many thousands of unidentified mushy's. But currently, its prime season for mushy's in the warmer parts of the country.

Picking mushrooms is a unique combination of forest law and requires knowledge of the seasons, soils, rainfall, plant hosts and most importantly mushroom ID. Old timers are often very reluctant to part with this knoweledge which is a terrible shame, but clubs solve this problem.

You're right about the yellow staining. The other most common white, brown gilled mushroom in Aust is the horse mushroom but the test to tell its a horse mushy is to bruise it and see if it goes a VIVID yellow colour. While it wont usually kill you it will give you a very bad tummmy. I've only ever once come across this mushroom in a Melbourne park and the color is rich highlighter pen yellow within a minute of bruising, there is no mistaking it.

By all reports the very poisonous mushrooms do not usually smell and they are very good to eat. They just kill you in a very very bad way. My experience of the deathcaps and destroying angels et.al in the ACT is that they are VERY handsome mushrooms with a good mushroomy smell. So I'm not at all surprised that people sometimes eat them mistakenly and end up dead. My rule is NEVER eat a white gilled. This easily rules out the amanita family of killers.

My favorite mushy in Australia is the pine bolete. There's no mistakeing it and its out in the pine forests now as the cooler weather and rains come. They enjoy the soil where compacted roadsides give way to forest in the older commercial radiata pine forests. They have sponge rather than gills and are a great nutty flavor when raw. But go very pungent and strong when cooked or dried. They are very close in taste to the porcini mushroom of italy. (which in Delis they try to sell to you at ridiculous prices)

Be careful, but its a great craft to learn.
Karl

I have some experience picking and eating wild mushrooms. There are some which are white up top and pink-brown underneath which ARE poisonous. The main one is commonly called a yellow stainer (Agaricus xanthodermus). Pressing the thumb into the cap or briusing or cutting any part of the caps results in a strong yellow stain. These are the main ones to look out for when picking mushrooms. There are some excellent field guides available for identification of wild mushrooms. I suggest buying one. A lot of the 'Boletus' group are edible and quite safe. These are the ones with a yellow spounge underneath in place of the more normal gills. They have a fruity smell and a mild flavour.

Here is a link that might be useful: yellow stainer

How does one go about finding a mushroom club?
I love mushrooms and it's one of the things I miss most about no longer living in France. Autumn is mushroom season there and the markets have tables covered with masses of the most delicious chanterelles, trompettes de mort, morelles etc. Most pharmacies in France are equipped to tell you whether or not you have a poisonous species and many, even experienced pickers, use this service.

to summarise
* these mushrooms look just like the typical store bought ones - white cap, brown gills

*these mushrooms do not have any yellow stain when the cap is bruised/cut

*these mushrooms grew where my neighbour put down mushroom compost as mulch (so presumably had spores still in it, and hte drizzly weather would have been perfect growing conditions

* my neighbour and her family have eaten them, and are still alive

I did read up on the net - and I've been turned off going mushrooming EVER! I'm still not sure if I'm even game enough to eat these ones! I didn't find any mushroom clubs online either.

thanks everyone!!

We used to go mushrooming when I was a kid and would always keep an eye on the paddocks as Dad drove past them for white dots. The yellow stain approach is all we ever used. I did have some really weird dreams one night after eating them so maybe a magic mushy slipped in the mix LOL. Dont see them in the paddocks any more. Probably too much chemical been sprayed every where.

raymondo,

did you try a search online for a mushroom or fungi eaters club?

i saw a doco' a long time back and ther was a club in melbourne or vic somewhere.

len

Phillips and Rix have a book in their plant series on fungi. They pioneered plant ID using photography as Martin Rix is a botanist and Roger Phillips a photographer. Might be worth a look if you can find it.

raymondo, My Dad lives on Kangaroo island and they have a native morel down there, looks very much the european one. I'd be keen to find out if it's edible or not. I'm pretty sure this is a native mushroom, only seem to grow in association with a particular type of shrub, a Leucadendron. I'll get Dad to send some pictures and we'll have a go at positive identification.

HI ALL SORRY FOR BUTTING IN. OZMANTIS IF YOU LIVE ANYWHERE NEAR US YOU WOULD BE MOST WELCOME IN MUSHY SEASON TO PICK TO YOUR HEARTS CONTENT , OUR PADDOCKS ARENT NEAR ANY MAIN ROADS,SO ARE USUALLY FULL OF THEM IN A GOOD SEASON, MY HUSBAND LOVES TO PICK THEM BUT DOESNT EAT THEM , SO WE LIKE TO SHARE THEM AROUND, I HAVE TO ADMIT I DO MAKE AN UTTER PIG OF MYSELF AT MUSHY TIME , NOT SURE IF I CAN HELP YOU WISHFUL ,I GUESS I JUST TRUST MY INSTINCTS ,"SMELL AND LOOKS" I DONT REALLY KNOW IT WAS PROBABLY INSTILLED IN ME FROM MY NANNA??
LORRAINE

Hi Lorraine. I live in Horsham in western vic. Huge cropping area here so the sprays go on thick and often. Not much wonder we have such a high rate of cancer here. I haven't seen a paddock mushroom for decades.
We used to just throw them in a pot and cook slowly till they were a black stew. Spooned onto toast and away you go. Ahhh memories

nope no sprays here ,just plenty of cow dung, but I guess with crops everywhere they would need to spray .I am in the latrobe valley virtually the other end of the state a pity as I would share some with you , I cook them the way you do too,but oh well cant be helped, take care and happy gardening to you all

Good ta see you, Wishful! Nothing much to add here...... we used to collect bucketfuls of safe and yummy mushies from the paddocks, particularly horse paddocks. Yeah, they were pink ripening to grey, easily peeled, looked/ smelled just like bought ones. A colleague of my SO's guarenteed (?) some field fungi once, those of us who ate them (they looked OK) were throwing up quick smart. Too sick to inform him, he who ate them for breakfast the next day and is still blaming US :)

Rose

on gardening australia's latest show they had a fungii bloke, i learnt a lot! there is a mushroom that is "brown" under and white on top that is now dominant where the field (safe) mushroom used to grow but it is a poison mushroom, so maybe the colour i first described might be the go from pink to a dark purplish maroon (never brown).

as mention there before there is that yellow one that looks like and edible but you get the yellow stain on your fingers if you rub it also dangerous.

so if you are new into fungii eating then do your research first, and i still say the best way is to find a club they are out there. i only know a couple of varieties and there are many more edibles than that.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

hi len ,yep len is right , find out all you can , but if in doubt "dont",when we pick, my husband hasnt a clue and just picks most which again isnt good so I always double check and again if I am not sure ,it goes in the compost ,or even if I have cooked some and they dont taste right out they go,
lorraine

update...

mushrooms stayed in the fridge till today - I dumped them on the compost tonight! I was too scared to risk it!

Hi All,

We picked beautiful field mushrooms up around Dargo a few years ago. Happened to be in the right place at the right time. We had so many that I mowed some into our 'lawn' to spread the spores.

We have had quite a few mushrooms since, whenever the weather was warm and moist, but this year they acted a little like yellow stainers, going quite red when fried in butter and having a more chemical taste. Strange, as you would think they wouldn't change from year to year.

Is it possible that the yellow-stainers have been contaminated with something? The chemical taste is a worry; I'd be wary of eating them for health reasons (subtle and long-term rather than immediate and catastrophic). Besides, you eat mushrooms for their taste so, if they don't taste good, there's no point in eating them, right?

Cestum, I have no idea if it could have been contamination - or cross-breeding. We have had yellow-stainers come up in the garden in the past, but of course just pull them out. It was very disappointing, as we had had some delicious mushies straight from the 'garden'. You could tell as soon as they went in the frypan that they weren't quite right with the deep red juices. We did eat them, and some which were similar from Carrum, but they weren't nice. We might have to go back up to Dargo to source some new'uns!