> Nicholas - We had this family doctor came around and we knew pretty well actually what they were. I mean, we looked in the book the very next morning when Alastair started feeling ill and Charlotte was already ill. It was so clear from the photograph that what we had eaten, it wasn't a cep. It was themushroom called cortinarius speciosissimus which some people call the deadly webcap apparently. It had a rather comforting skull and cross bones underneath it, with a little caption, deadly poisonous.
Any time someone says "this is xyz 101, how could anyone be so confused", I hear instead "the human capacity for doing something without what others view as 'minimum sufficient education to survive it' remains unchanged throughout human history", which is precisely why the warnings are so dire. It's not to scare people away, it's just to offer them a defense versus their own curiosity and impulsiveness until they choose to make time to learn xyz 101.
Ah! That sounds like a job for an NTSB-type analysis, because most human WTFs are built on a series of improbable events.
Maybe their glasses were fogged? Maybe the afternoon light was at the right angle to hide the 'gills' enough that their check failed? Maybe they had a time-efficient shortcut that finally found an edge case they hadn't planned for?
Right, of people who die from mushroom poisoning, they are almost all either immigrants eating things that look like edible mushrooms where they come from, or else children who are randomly eating things they see in their lawn. Cases like this where you have someone who has been foraging for decades and eats something deadly poisonous happen maybe once every ten years, and I suspect it's mostly people with early onset Parkinson's or something that's causing them to act impulsively. This isn't an identification mistake, there's clearly some kind of neurological issue here.
From the story it doesn't even appear that they attempted an ID until after they were very ill.
Back to the car analogy, if someone kills themself driving down the wrong side of the highway we don't all give up on driving because it is unsafe.
Yes you can definitely kill yourself foraging mushrooms. It's exceptionally unlikely with even a small bit of precaution and common sense but of course if you disregard all of that you are putting yourself at huge risk. Just like almost every other activity that involves some risks.
The article is only about prevalence of P. Sem. (Liberty cap).
In my experience and in a network of many other people, there are precisely ZERO little brown mushrooms having BOTH a passing resemblance to p. sem. in any conditions (dry/wet or young/old) AND are noxious let alone dangerous.
If its your first time, be cautious, take a good book. On a dry day P. Sem. is easier to distinguish from other species that are safe but wrong. One day of successful foraging and you will know P. Sem. well enough in the wet too.
If it has the characteristic nipple, it is certainly what you are looking for. If not,well it may be, but you can just leave it until your skill improves.
Finally, needless to say, the moment the first mushroom enters your mouth, foraging is over for the day.
This advice is only going to be true in your region. If someone picks up a guidebook for your region and it says that they are safe to pick there then I'm all for it
This is exactly why most foraging illnesses happen to travelers because some thing that is true in a specific place is frequently not true in other places.
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/nicho...
I feel bad for the guy -- really, so, so bad -- but you have to be really confused to mix up a bolete with a webcap.
Webcap: https://www.first-nature.com/fungi/images/cortinariales/cort...
Porcino: https://lovelygreens.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/cep-porc...
Porcini don't have gills! This is like mushrooms 101.
Doesn't this kind of prove the rule? I feel like most of the cases of people getting sick from mushrooms are cases like this.