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Don't Cook That

Testing and Cooking Mushrooms

Eat a bit of the unknown fungus. If your throat burns, take a copious dose of salt.

From
The 20th Century Home Cook Book
Published
1906
Yikes Scale
Call poison control

Exactly as printed, 1906

Peel off the outer skin, break out the stem, and set the cap, top down, on a hot stove. In the spot where the stem formerly stood put a little salt, and, if desired, a small bit of butter. Scatter some salt over the gills. When the butter or salt melts, the cooking is done; and as soon as it is cool enough the fungus should be eaten, carefully saving the juice. Some fungi that do not seem particularly delicious when thus cooked, will, when slowly stewed with a little butter, and flour dredged in, with salt and pepper, make most delicious stews. Agaricus campestris is the one generally raised, but all the mushrooms, cantharellus, marisimus, boletus, indeed all of the edible fungi named, will stew together, and form a dish that, alone or as an entrée, cannot be surpassed in delicacy of flavor and gastronomic satisfaction.

In testing new fungi, one eats a little of the cap with common salt to ascertain whether it tastes good, and whether it affects the fauces of the throat disagreeably; when a burning or stinging sensation accompanies or follows the swallowing, eat no more but take a copious dose of common salt, which generally neutralizes the poison. Some species, unpleasant or slightly injurious when raw, lose their harsh qualities in cooking; but as there are so many that are delicious, it is well to give up the doubtful kinds.

IV. Pickles, Catsup and Condiments.


The 20th Century Home Cook Book, 1906. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

The taste test fails on exactly the mushrooms it needs to catch. Survivors of death-cap poisoning consistently describe it as tasting good, and there is no burn to warn you.

Salt neutralises no mushroom toxin. A large forced dose of salt is dangerous in its own right, and inducing vomiting is no longer recommended as first aid for anything.

Notes from the 21st century

  • The delay is the whole danger. Amatoxin poisoning is silent for six to twenty-four hours. A test that relies on immediate symptoms cannot detect it.
  • The same entry greens its mushrooms with alum in brass. Scalding in a brass kettle with alum was done because the verdigris that forms “imparts a fine green.” Verdigris is a copper salt.
  • If you suspect poisoning. In the US, Poison Control is 1-800-222-1222. Keep a sample of the mushroom; species identification changes the treatment.

Also in this book

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