Rarity and edibility

[endless autumn]

In general I don't find that many fungi which are both rare and edible.

Over the past few years I've seen some old man of the woods, Cantharellus ferruginascens, Hericium coralloides and Creolophus cirrhatus, none of which I've taken.

But where do you draw the line? What about, say, Cantharellus amethysteus, Tuber aestivum or Boletus aereus? Is it a case of not taking anything which is described as 'rare' in a book? Or are only the species on the Red List to be ignored? Or is it a contextual thing - should we only take species which are abundant in their particular environment? And if so, would it be justifiable to take one Boletus regius out of a group of 100-odd? (I realise this is rather unlikely...)

Just wondered what members thought was the right way to proceed, so that I can get closer to being (as my favourite Catalan mushroom book puts it): 'un gentleman des bois'.

[Fungus Ken]

I don't think there can be any hard and fast rules on this but I think there is a difference depending on whether you are collecting for culinary purposes or for recording purposes.

If it is a rare species, something you are unfamiliar with, or something that can't be positively identified in the field, you might have to take a sample back for scientific purposes. (Your record might be invalid without a voucher specimen.) So in this case, I think picking just what you need for your identification purposes is justified in order to produce an accurate record. (But obviously you would not need, for example, to pick an entire Hericium "fruiting body" to identify it.)

What I would suggest is that for culinary purposes there aren't many species that stand comparison with shop bought mushrooms for taste and texture. If anyone is planning to collect for eating, I'd recommend sticking to just common and easily-identified species (for which they can rule out with 100% confidence any toxic lookalikes). No doubt they will then find they have their favourites, so just stick to those.

Experimenting with a wider range of fungi is tempting fate. It is just too easy to overlook that one important but subtle difference and if you're lucky you might get away with a mildly upset stomach. But other experimenters have been less fortunate, as we all know.

Ken