The mushroom rule that keeps me alive
Nine species in the basket, one left in the forest because I was not certain.
People assume mushroom picking is about knowing a lot of species. It is mostly about being willing to leave things behind. My rule has not changed in twelve years: if I am not certain to the point of being bored by my own certainty, it stays where it is.
What certainty actually means
Not "it looks like the picture". Certainty means I can say why it is that species and not the two others it resembles, out loud, to somebody who would argue with me. If I cannot do that, it goes in the "maybe" bag — and the maybe bag gets emptied back onto the forest floor at the end of the walk, without discussion.
The species I am genuinely confident about are few: chanterelle, funnel chanterelle, cep, birch bolete, and three or four others I will not list, because a list in a blog post is exactly the kind of thing somebody reads once and then trusts too much.
A list of safe mushrooms is the most dangerous thing a nature blog can publish.
The one I left behind
On the way back there was a cluster under a spruce that looked like a good edible and had, as far as I could tell, all the right features. What I could not do was explain away one detail: the stem was a little too yellow under the ring. So it stayed. I have looked it up twice since and I am fairly sure it was fine. Fairly sure is not the standard.
What to do instead of reading this
- Go with somebody who has picked here for years, once, and watch what they reject.
- Learn five species properly rather than thirty approximately.
- Keep the basket in view. If two mushrooms end up in it and you cannot remember putting one there, empty it.
Nine species, two hours, and a very good soup. The tenth is still in the forest, where it belongs.