Two mushrooms I trust
After three years of careful study, the two mushrooms I am willing to eat — and the long list of those I am not.
Mushrooms are a long study. I have been at this for three years now, mostly with the help of an older neighbour, Henri, who has been foraging in the same forests for forty-five years and who treats the whole subject with the deep, slightly weary respect that anyone who has been at it that long arrives at.
After three years I am willing to eat exactly two species I find on my own. Henri eats about thirty. The gap is not because I am especially cautious — it is because the gap takes time to close, and three years is not enough, and Henri at twenty was probably eating two as well.
The two I trust
Cep — what the French call cèpes, what the Italians call porcini, the species Boletus edulis and its close cousins. Ceps are forgiving. They have a sponge of pores under the cap instead of gills, and the very few dangerous boletes are obviously different in colour and texture once you have seen them once. The cep is also unmistakable to the nose. It has a nutty, slightly sweet smell that, once you know it, you can identify with your eyes closed.
And chanterelle — Cantharellus cibarius, the small golden trumpet-shaped mushroom that grows in clusters on the forest floor in late summer. Chanterelles are unmistakable if you have looked at one carefully. The 'gills' are not really gills, they are ridges, and they are continuous with the stem in a way that nothing dangerous mimics. The smell, faintly of apricot, is also distinctive.
The long list of those I am not eating
Russulas. Lactarius. Most of the agarics. The puffballs, which are mostly safe but which I cannot reliably distinguish from their few dangerous cousins. The small white mushrooms in lawns, which are mostly poisonous and which I now warn neighbours away from. And the entire Amanita family, several of which are deadly and one of which — the death cap, Amanita phalloides — kills people every year in France because they confuse it with an edible Volvariella.
What three years of looking has actually taught me
Mostly humility. I see more mushrooms now than I used to, on every walk. I can name many of them. I will not eat most of them. The naming is a separate pleasure from the eating, and probably the larger one. A walk in October now produces, on a good day, twenty or thirty mushrooms I can identify with confidence, and two of which I am willing to put in a basket. The rest I photograph, leave standing, and walk on.
If you are interested in foraging, find a Henri. Spend three years with him. Eat what he eats and nothing else. The gap closes slowly and that is the whole point.