Review: The Observer's Book of Common Fungi

I have a lot of mushroom guides. They come to me in different ways - I buy them, I bid on them on eBay, I receive them as gifts, some have been left in my work mailbox by anonymous donors... but the source of many of the hard-to-find, international, and just downright bizarre books have been those found by my friend, Elizabeth at the bookstore she works at. I've got a pile of them. Most of them are fairly outdated in the sense that the science of mycology has passed them by, either by new discoveries or by classification changes.

But they're fascinating nevertheless.

The Observer's Book of Common Fungi was published in 1958 by Frederick Warne & Co. LTD, as part of an Observer series that included editions on Pond Life, Larger Moths, Railway Locomotives of Britain, and Cacti and Other Succulents, among others. The authorship is credited to E.M. Wakefield and includes one of my favorite features of older guides - full color plates. In this case 32 of them. The descriptions listed in the book, about 200, are British species, though many of them can be found elsewhere.

Wakefield's Introduction begins -

"Soon after the first warm rains of autumn have softened the soil, the floors of our woodlands become carpeted, as if by magic, with a wealth of toadstools, large and small, brightly coloured or sinister-looking, sometimes strange in form, often beautiful."


The Introduction goes on to cover spore germination, life cycles, spore prints, classifications, in descriptions that are wonderfully concise. The 200 individual species descriptions have a personal tone to them and are often written in one long paragraph. Of the Shaggy Ink Cap, he writes -

"This well-known fungus needs little description. It comes up in groups on rich ground in late summer and autumn, and at times becomes a pest on bowling greens and tennis courts which have been laid out over ground containing rubbish ('made ground')."


Many fungi books of this time solely concentrated on mushrooms that were of the traditional cap and stem variety. Here, he is able to sneak in a few pages on shelf, stinkhorn, coral, bird's nest, and other sundry fruiting bodies.

Overall, this is a fun little book. Personable, (Wakefield refers to the Horn of Plenty as "sombre-looking") and informative, and coming in at about 100 pages and measuring an easily pocketable 4x6, it is worth keeping (or adding) to any mycological collection... even if it did have its 50th birthday last year.

Review: The Little Mushroom Book

From the same folks who brought you The Little Garlic Book, The Little Bean Book, and the staple of kitchens everywhere, The Little Green Avocado Book, comes...

The Little Mushroom Book.

Actually this was written by Rosamond Richardson and published by Piatkus Limited in 1983. A copy of it has been sitting on my desk at work for quite awhile so I finally decided to give it a read. And I'm glad I did. I learned more in its 62 little (4x6) pages than I did in some larger, more popular field guides... yes, I'm looking at you Simon & Schuster's.

A collection of mushroom lore and history including sections on "How the Mushroom Got its Name," and "Helpful Poisons," it also includes information on picking, storing, drying, pickling, and freezing mushrooms. On page 37 the recipes kick in, highlighted by Mushroom-Stuffed Cucumbers, and Mushroom Suet Roll.

Here are some of the items that were new to me:

* Bofists and Bulfists are country names for fungi that "belches" like puffballs. Google actually returned a few results upon inspection.

* The Romans hired mushroom-collectors to prepare boletaria from only the most precious of fungi. Only cutlery fashioned from amber and silver were considered worthy of such delicacies.

* Christ liked to spit. Actually in parts of Europe there exists a tale St. Peter and Christ were walking through the forest when Christ spat. From the ground popped up mushrooms. Unfortunately the Devil was close behind and copied Christ. Up from his spit grew poisonous mushrooms.

* Under Old Wives' Tales - To treat Death Cap poisoning, take a finely chopped mixture of rabbit gut and brain and wash it down with a sugar solution.

* Another Old Wives' Tale (I hope) - Mushrooms in dreams foretell only fleeting happiness, and to dream of gathering them means a lack of attachment on the part of your lover or spouse.

This book may be a little difficult to find. In fact, trying to find a picture of the cover online was futile. I don't ever recall not being able to find a book cover online.

Enjoy!

Review: Twenty Common Mushrooms

Okay, this won't be the same type of review as the Simon & Schuster guide I did in March. Why? Well, this is less of a field guide and more of a book on cooking mushrooms. Plus it's from 1965 so it's a little hard to compare. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I should change the tag on these posts from Field Guide Reviews to Mushroom Books. I own quite a few field guides which are useful for ID... I also have a bunch of out-of-print books that are great for seeing how the perception and approach toward mushroom have changed over the years.

This book was put together by members of the Boston Mycological Club (you can get more information about this great group - currently in their 113th year! - here) At around 100 pages, the paperback focuses on explaining what a mushroom is, classification, identification, and recipes. Even as far back as 1965, books were warning of improper techniques; trying to correct misconceptions of identifying edible varieties, such as

"Indiscriminate mushroom eaters rely upon the quack silver test. If a silver coin or spoon does not turn black when boiled with the mushrooms, they pass as edible. Some deadly Amanitas do not turn silver black, but will poison you fatally."


It is also interesting to compare changes in the years since it was published. It points out that there were over 600 commercial growers in the 60's. We now have less than 300. However, consumption has increased 20 to 30 fold over that same time period.

Some of my favorite recipes include: (note, I have yet to actually try any of these, I am simply going on their names.)

• Unexpected Soup from the Early Coprinus (can't say this sounds too tempting to me...)

• Eye Catching Comatus Pickle (Ummm... no.)

• Mushroom Pasties (I imagine there would be better choices.)

Okay, so I selectively picked out some off-sounding ones, but there are many others in the book that sound gloriously tantalizing... like:

• Pickle Nibblers

• Comatus Special

Okay, okay. But there really are a few.

For those of you who might be interested in tracking this book down, I've seen a few used copies of the book available online. Here, here, and you can even borrow it from Plymouth State University in NH, here!

Review: Simon & Schuster's Guide to Mushrooms

When I lead mushroom walks I get a variety of people for a variety of reasons. But the one thing that stays the same for ALL the walks I do is the same set of questions I get asked: 

• "Are we going to see any hallucinogens?"
• "Can I eat that one?"

• "Can you recommend a good field guide?"

I'm going to skirt answering all three!  Actually the third question is the one I'm going to tackle in this post.  Well sort of.  This will be the first in a series of looks at popular field guides that can be found at many bookstores.  (I probably should say online bookstores.)

The Simon & Schuster guide was originally published in Italy under the title Funghi in 1980.  The English translation came the next year.  I point this out because much of the guide feels like a translation.  It's a bit of a bore actually.  The photos are fairly run-of-the-mill.  Many are quite "muddy" in appearance.  Some care was taken with them, as they do show many of the key identifiers (gills, habitat) in detail. But many of the smaller fruiting bodies (Mycena, Marasmius) are taken from a distance that ID is nearly impossible, or worse, the background is so similar to the mushroom that they are difficult to even see.

It does not promote itself as a North American field guide which is good because there are many entries that are not found in North America.  A lot of people forget about this when buying a guide.  (We did, on our first purchase... more on that in a later post.)  You spend time narrowing down your mushroom only to find it isn't even on this continent.  (And then are left wondering, exactly what was it that you found.)

It does include a key, which is an important part of a good guide, but it seems more of an afterthought - the spacing of the lines is difficult to parse and there is no glossary of many of the descriptive words that are used in the key... so you'll need to look up "ramified," and "ostioles," and "peridium," and a slew of others.

It includes a somewhat laughable edibility legend with a strange red-shaped intersection for "poisonous."  One fork for "good" edibility and two forks for "excellent."  Now I don't know about you but if I want to ID a mushroom that might cause extreme vomiting I want something that looks a bit threatening.  I suppose the red intersection could be one of those dangerous intersections where the streetlights are blinking yellows in two directions, or there's an incompetent crossing guard or something, but I don't feel properly warned... in fact it kind of looks like four shrimp toasts on a plate.  Or maybe I'm just hungry.

One thing I do like is that it includes the etymology for the entry, so you can figure out where some of these seemingly odd scientific names come from.  This is the one feature that keeps this guide on my bookshelf.

Pros:

- portable
- etymological entries

Cons:

- whole book (descriptions, pictures, key) feels seriously outdated

- too much space taken up with silly symbols

Overall, you can do a lot better.