Fungal frolics
Question: In continental Europe, gathering wild mushrooms is a popular
pastime and knowledge of types and their culinary varieties is widespread. In
Britain few people can tell one mushroom from another. Why? Surely there was a
time when Britain鈥檚 rural population ate anything edible. Has mushroom lore
simply been lost?
Answer: There is no good evidence that the British ever had any fungus lore
worth losing. Our ancestors, both Saxon and Celtic, seemed to consider them
鈥減oisonous damp weeds鈥�, typically found near serpents鈥� dens, and treated them
accordingly. With very few exceptions (field mushrooms, blewits, and a few odds
and ends used as folk medicines), our forebears simply didn鈥檛 touch the things.
But we were not alone. Several other European nations, including the Dutch and
the Finns, are, or were until recently, equally mycophobic.
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Farther afield, in Africa, fungi have been valued and widely eaten in some
areas, rejected or regarded with suspicion in others. The same is true in the
Americas, where the Inuit, for example, traditionally shun most fungi as 鈥渢he
excrement of shooting stars鈥�, even though they, because of their geographical
niche, must once have eaten almost anything they could.
The reasons for avoiding fungi are presumably connected with ancient taboos
of the sort that prevent most societies from eating horses. Mycophobic peoples,
including the British, typically associate fungi with dung, death and
decomposition. There is enough truth in this for the taboo to be continually
reinforced. Some 3000 or so species of larger fungi occur in Britain, most of
them difficult to recognise and many of them variously poisonous.
Mycophilic peoples with no such taboos have built up a store of traditional
knowledge backed up, at least in Europe, by an infrastructure of local experts,
market inspectors, fungus displays in town halls, posters and suchlike. Despite
this, the annual poisoning reports for some continental countries make gruesome
reading. Unless you are very confident of your identification skills, the safest
advice is to do your fungus foraying in the supermarket.
Peter Roberts
Mycology Section
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Answer: There are three different traditions of mushroom collecting in
Europe. In southern Europe, mushrooms are culinary stars and are sold separately
at markets at high prices for flawless specimens. Italian mushroom books have a
five-degree scale based on taste. In season there are regular airfreight
services of fungi from Scandinavia to Milan. Special dogs and pigs are bred for
the purpose of truffle searching.
In north-central Europe, including Scandinavia, Germany and Austria, mushroom
collecting is more of an outdoor hobby, where people try to identify and
recognise as many species as possible, eat a few, and sell very little on the
market.
The eastern European tradition in places such as Estonia and Russia is to
collect lots of mushrooms as winter food鈥� especially peppery species,
because they contain fewer insects. Their taste can be altered by salting or
parboiling. Dairy trucks pick up boxes of wild mushrooms from the farmers to
prepare for further distribution.
The British tradition was summarised in The Grete Herball, published
in 1526: 鈥淢ussheroons: There be two manners of them; one manner is deadly and
slayeth them that eateth them and be called tode stools, and the other doeth
not. They that be not deadly have a grosse gleymy moysture that is disobedient
to nature and digestyon, and be peryllous and dreadfull to eate, and therefore
it is good to eschew them.鈥�
Erik Sundstrom,
Sandviken, Sweden
Answer: It is indeed remarkable that there is no tradition of gathering
edible fungi in Britain. Very few historical records of the use of fungi exist
and there seems to be no apparent reason why. The usual explanation, as given by
Tess Darwin in The Scots Herbal (1996), is that in ancient times
hallucinogenic fungi such as fly agaric were reserved for use by shamanic
Druids, and that somehow, over the course of history this restriction extended
to all fungi.
It is interesting to see, however, that gathering edible wild fungi, mainly
for export to continental Europe, has become an economic activity in Scotland
over the past decade. The Black Isle and Speyside seem particular hot-spots for
fungus collecting. When I tried to find out why, I was told that the practice
was introduced to the Black Isle in the 1970s by French immigrants, who set up a
little business exporting fungi and trained local people to collect them.
Recently, I heard that in the Glasgow area it is claimed that the habit of
collecting edible fungi was introduced by Italian immigrants.
It seems that the honour of reintroducing fungus collecting to Britain cannot
be claimed by the British themselves.
Veerle Van den Eynden
Forres, Grampian
Answer: About 25 years ago I was working in Clermont-Ferrand in central
France at the height of the autumn fungus-gathering season. In one of the
chemist鈥檚 shops in town, possibly part of a national chain, a large window
display was made up of life-sized coloured models of fungi. The backdrop
painting provided habitat information. Each type was named, and labelled either
poisonous or non-poisonous, while at specified times an expert on fungi was
available in-store to answer questions and give advice on recipes.
On my return to Britain I wrote to Boots the chemists, told them about this
service and suggested that they followed suit. They replied that they found my
suggestion interesting and would consider it. As far as I know that鈥檚 as far as
it went.
This doesn鈥檛 really answer the question but it may go some way to explaining
why our attitudes to mushrooms are so different from many people in mainland
Europe.
Geoffrey Sherlock
Amersham, Buckinghamshire
This week鈥檚 questions
Rings of confidence: How do smoke rings form and why do they remain so
stable?
Julian Gold
Leeds, West Yorkshire
Feline fear: If my cat were suddenly to grow to the size of a tiger, or if I
were to shrink to the size of a mouse, would he still consider me his 鈥渇riend鈥�
or would he see me as potential food?
Jean-Luc Kerdelhue
Orleans, France
Cold war: In a film I saw recently, a bomb squad froze an explosive device,
saying that it could delay the explosion by about two seconds. At exteremely low
temperatures, would ordinary explosives detonate at all? Chemical reactions must
progress very slowly at about 鈭�200 掳C.
S. Theobald
Harbooere, Denmark