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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault for an older episode

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Speaker 1: of the show. This is part one of a series

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Speaker 1: we did on mushroom foraging. This was originally published September fifteenth,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty. It's actually I feel like around this time

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Speaker 1: last year we were doing a lot of wandering in

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Speaker 1: the Woods related episodes. We were yeah, yeah, because we'd

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Speaker 1: done the Leshy, and then we were talking about mushroom

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Speaker 1: foraging as like a human behavior and a human cultural practice.

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Speaker 1: Pretty it's it's pretty fun. This is part one, and

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Speaker 1: our next Vault episode will be part two. And a

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Speaker 1: little notice here at the beginning, this is an insert

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Speaker 1: because Robert and I we started talking about mushroom foraging

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Speaker 1: and we ended up going on for like more than

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Speaker 1: two hours. So we're splitting this episode into two parts.

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Speaker 1: And here is your warnings, so be sure to not

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Speaker 1: only listen to this one, but come back next time.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going

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Speaker 1: on the Quiet Time. That's right, we're gonna be talking

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Speaker 1: about mushroom foraging, which we kind of touched on very

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Speaker 1: briefly in our recent episode about liking, and then I

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Speaker 1: realized we just had to come back to it because

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Speaker 1: I guess the basic genesis for this is that I've

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Speaker 1: noticed a lot more mushroom talk and a lot a

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Speaker 1: lot more mushroom activity this year. Part of it has

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Speaker 1: been social media, for sure. I've noticed people I know

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Speaker 1: taking photographs of interesting mushrooms that they've spotted, sometimes correctly

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Speaker 1: identifying them or even harvesting them. And I have to

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Speaker 1: admit that my own family we've gotten into identifying mushrooms

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Speaker 1: on hikes, and we've even done a little bit of

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Speaker 1: foraging ourselves, but only with racie mushrooms and chanterelles. In

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Speaker 1: a way, mushroom foraging is an ideal social distancing activity, right.

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Speaker 1: It's something you can do that in a way feels

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Speaker 1: social because you take them home and you take pictures

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Speaker 1: of them and you put them on the internet and

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Speaker 1: everybody thinks it's beautiful and they comment on them, and

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Speaker 1: it's a way of interacting in a significant productive way

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Speaker 1: with the world outside your house, but you don't have

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Speaker 1: to get close to anybody. Yeah, yeah, it's I think

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Speaker 1: part of it has certainly been COVID nineteen restrictions on

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Speaker 1: our lives, because some of us are doing a lot

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Speaker 1: more walks through either parks or you know, or hiking

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Speaker 1: trails if we have access to them and we're able

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Speaker 1: to get to those, but even through our own neighborhoods,

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Speaker 1: Like we've harvested some raci mushrooms from just our immediate

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Speaker 1: neighborhood environment just walking walking around, spotting them and then

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Speaker 1: ideing them, and then also just ideing various other things

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Speaker 1: that were not attempting to collect. It's a great it's

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Speaker 1: a great way to occupy your time to sort of

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Speaker 1: have It's kind of like the Pokemon Go of the Wild.

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Speaker 1: It gives you sort of goals to achieve on your walks,

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Speaker 1: things to chronicle, and for most of us anyway, a

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Speaker 1: new topic to immerse ourselves in, you know, because prior

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Speaker 1: to the last couple of years or so, I really

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Speaker 1: didn't know much about mushrooms outside of like the few

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Speaker 1: varieties that I had previously consumed or that you can

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Speaker 1: find at the grocery store or order on a pizza.

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Speaker 1: But of course that's only a slim variety of the

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Speaker 1: mushroom whirld. There are some delicious, edible wild mushrooms that

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Speaker 1: have resisted cultivation. Yeah, totally, And there are some interesting

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Speaker 1: reasons for that too, like one of them being that,

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Speaker 1: tying back to our recent Lin episode, some mushrooms that

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Speaker 1: are delicious to eat exist in symbiotic relationships with other organisms,

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Speaker 1: specifically often like plants and trees that are difficult to

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Speaker 1: recreate in a controlled environment. So you can't just start

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Speaker 1: a chantrelle farm. Or maybe you could, but you know

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Speaker 1: your yield would be inconsistent. It's just really difficult to do. Absolutely.

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Speaker 1: Another thing, though, is it's funny that we think of

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Speaker 1: mushroom foraging as sort of the natural world version of

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Speaker 1: Pokemon Go. It's it's a sign of like how sort

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Speaker 1: of microchif tamed our brains are. That Isn't Pokemon Go

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Speaker 1: really a sort of substitute or surrogate for this ancient

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Speaker 1: instinct we have to scour the land for bits of

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Speaker 1: edible plant matter and other life. It absolutely is, and

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Speaker 1: and so that's why I encourage everyone to, you know,

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Speaker 1: keep listening to this episode even if you're you're not

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Speaker 1: that into mushrooms, you're not interested in mushroom foraging, because

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Speaker 1: we're going to discuss mushroom foraging, but we're also going

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Speaker 1: to discuss foraging behavior, uh in a broader sense. And

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Speaker 1: I think that's something that that that certainly you can

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Speaker 1: gauge into. So when you're on a walk and you're

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Speaker 1: looking for something, be it birds or mushrooms or non

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Speaker 1: existent Pokemon lurking, you know somewhere in the GPS domain.

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Speaker 1: And I think it also comes into play in shopping,

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Speaker 1: in sorting through a big box of unsorted legos to

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Speaker 1: find the pieces you're looking for. I mean, it pops

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Speaker 1: up in so many different human activities and it captivates us.

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Speaker 1: It is, it latches into a part of our neural

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Speaker 1: hardware because it is part of what we're supposed to do.

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Speaker 1: This is interesting. I wish I had thought about this

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Speaker 1: before we started talking, so I could research it a bit,

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Speaker 1: But it just occurred to me. What makes the difference

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Speaker 1: between search activities that are intensely pleasurable and search activities

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Speaker 1: that are maddening. Like I'm thinking about search activities such

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Speaker 1: as locating a specific item within your house or a

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Speaker 1: given room that is not fun, that feels awful, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's like where are my keys? You just you just

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Speaker 1: want it to end as soon as possible. But on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, of course, foraging for mushrooms, playing Pokemon Go,

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Speaker 1: or even sometimes digging through a container of legos that

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Speaker 1: can be very fun, or searching for a puzzle piece.

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Speaker 1: So what's the difference. I mean, it might be the

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Speaker 1: difference between the search for the thing lost and the

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Speaker 1: search for the thing not yet obtained. I'm not sure,

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Speaker 1: But I also have noticed, I think I've mentioned this

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Speaker 1: on the show before. I have found that jigsaw puzzles

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Speaker 1: the process of looking for the correct piece. For me,

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Speaker 1: I feel it's both like it's both kind of mentally

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Speaker 1: exhausting and frustrating and yet at the same time completely enthralling.

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Speaker 1: So in the past I found myself helping to put

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Speaker 1: together a jigsaw puzzle and not really like, I'm asking myself,

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Speaker 1: Am I enjoying this? Am I having a good time?

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but I also cannot stop. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess one thing we're highlighting is the sometimes fuzzy

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Speaker 1: line between work and play a lot of you ever

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Speaker 1: notice how much video game time is taken up with

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Speaker 1: things that like are basically like they would be work

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Speaker 1: in the real world, but something about the way they're

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Speaker 1: framed just makes it a game instead. Yeah. So many

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Speaker 1: of these games, especially, you know, they want you to

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Speaker 1: play regularly. It's not just play through the story, it's

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Speaker 1: play every day. So they give you these little, basically

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Speaker 1: grocery lists of things to do, and you know, sometimes

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Speaker 1: you see players complaining about it, and rightfully so, but

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Speaker 1: but also there's something kind of addictive about it, like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I need to go out. I need to you know,

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Speaker 1: find and scrap eight hats in this post apocalyptic world,

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Speaker 1: you know, something like that, and uh, and it's you

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Speaker 1: can weirdly get into it. Yeah, I gotta break rocks

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Speaker 1: in my digital domain. Though I guess that that sort

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Speaker 1: of introduces the slot machine element, because if it's exciting,

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Speaker 1: if there are variable, intermittent rewards, I think that's the

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Speaker 1: candy in there. Yeah, I mean it was. Sometimes there's

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Speaker 1: like a random the reward is random, but like sometimes

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Speaker 1: like in Fallout seventy six, which which I know fans

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Speaker 1: kind of go back and forth on this particular game

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Speaker 1: and the way it's designed and all in that elements

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Speaker 1: in it, But like a lot of the sort of

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Speaker 1: grocery list assignments you have, there's there's not really a

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Speaker 1: random rewards. You know exactly what you're gonna get, Like

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Speaker 1: you're gonna get so many like you know, atoms that

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Speaker 1: you can spend in the store or whatever. You know

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Speaker 1: exactly what you're working for with it. So in that regard,

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Speaker 1: I feel like it kind of falls in line with foraging.

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Speaker 1: But then again, foraging is also an exercise in not

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Speaker 1: necessarily knowing what you're going to get or knowing what

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Speaker 1: quantities you're going to get. And we'll get into that.

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Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean what if one of these digital

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Speaker 1: rocks you broke could kill you? Yeah? Yeah, And that's

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Speaker 1: going to be a huge part of mushrooms here. But

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Speaker 1: before we get go any further, I do want to

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Speaker 1: just show us a couple more things. First of all, yes,

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Speaker 1: photography is a tremendously fun activity to engage in with

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Speaker 1: mushrooms when you're scavenging them and finding them and charting

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Speaker 1: them in the wild. Spore prints are also a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun. Now, this is when you you can look

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Speaker 1: up guides on how to do this online, but where

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Speaker 1: you collect like the cap of the mushroom, and then

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Speaker 1: you put it on a sheet of paper and then

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Speaker 1: cover it with like a glass container or a bowl

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Speaker 1: or something, and then the spores leave a print of

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Speaker 1: the mushroom cap on the sheet of paper, which you

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Speaker 1: can then photograph and share online or even you know.

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Speaker 1: I think they're ways to preserve it as well. Noting

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Speaker 1: the emission of spores is a great reminder of something

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Speaker 1: we've talked about before, which is that when you harvest

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Speaker 1: a mushroom, you are not harvesting the entire organism that

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Speaker 1: you know, the fungus is a web of things that

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Speaker 1: live under the ground, usually or in some kind of

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Speaker 1: decomposing matter or parasitic on another organism. The mushroom that

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Speaker 1: you collect is the fruiting body that's like an organ

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Speaker 1: of the overall fungus. It's almost, I mean, not exactly analogous,

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Speaker 1: but the closest analogy I think would be that it's

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Speaker 1: like you're breaking off the sexual organs of an animal

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Speaker 1: and walking away with them. Now that being said, I

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Speaker 1: want to stress something that mushroom foragers often stress regarding

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Speaker 1: the fruiting body, and that is that you're not going

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Speaker 1: to be hurting the organism by by harvesting the mushrooms themselves.

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Speaker 1: Now that being said before, first of all, before you

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Speaker 1: engage in any kind of mushroom foraging, be aware that

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Speaker 1: in some places it is prohibited some places or maybe

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Speaker 1: not going to be hipped to this idea that you're

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Speaker 1: not really hurting the organism. They're still saying, well, you're

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Speaker 1: taking away from this natural environment that is protected in

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Speaker 1: this space. The other huge thing we want to stress

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Speaker 1: before we go any further is that while we're going

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Speaker 1: to be discussing mushroom foraging for mushrooms that one would

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Speaker 1: then consume for culinary or medicinal purposes, do not engage

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Speaker 1: in this, you know, just based on anything we've told

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Speaker 1: you here. As we are going to outline shortly, there

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Speaker 1: are some risks involved there if you if you pick

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Speaker 1: the wrong mushroom, some dire consequences can occur, and you

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Speaker 1: just really need to know, you need to go down

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Speaker 1: that road with professionals who know what they're talking about

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Speaker 1: with mushroom foraging, and you know, don't just run off

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Speaker 1: into the wild. Based on listening to this episode. Yes,

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Speaker 1: do not choose to put any particular thing in your

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Speaker 1: mouth because of anything we say here today. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: speaking of this this danger factor, uh, yeah, I want

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Speaker 1: to stress that while while I myself have enjoyed engaging

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Speaker 1: in mushroom identification and the limited foraging, that my family

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Speaker 1: feels comfortable with, yeah, to really, you know, drive the

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Speaker 1: nail home here. If you eat the wrong mushroom that

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Speaker 1: you find in the wild, you will die, because you know,

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Speaker 1: most notoriously, there's a variety of mushroom known as destroying angels,

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Speaker 1: and and these will indeed destroy you should you make

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Speaker 1: make if you should mistake them for an edible mushroom.

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Speaker 1: The deadly webcap mushroom as another example. This one has

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Speaker 1: been mistaken for edible chantrelle mushrooms. It's even been mistaken

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Speaker 1: for psilocybin mushrooms before, and it has a horrifying reputation

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Speaker 1: for causing irreversible kidney failure in those who consume it,

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Speaker 1: including some very notable cases such as that of English

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Speaker 1: author Nicholas Adams. Yeah, there are actually a number of

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Speaker 1: historically notable alleged mushroom poisonings that I've been reading about,

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Speaker 1: specifically in a book by Cynthia D. Burtleson called Mushroom

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Speaker 1: a Global History from Reaction Books in twenty thirteen. I

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Speaker 1: think it was also distributed by the University of Chicago Press.

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Speaker 1: But Burtleson at one point writes about how the French

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Speaker 1: philosopher Voltaire, who lives sixteen ninety four to seventeen seventy eight,

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Speaker 1: once wrote, quote a dish of mushrooms changed the destiny

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Speaker 1: of Europe. Now, how could that possibly be true? Well,

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Speaker 1: he was talking about the poisoning of a specific king

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Speaker 1: of the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg King, Charles the

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Speaker 1: sixth of Austria. To pick up with what Burtleson writes,

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Speaker 1: quote who ate deathcap mushrooms? Amanita falloitties the subsequent War

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Speaker 1: of the Austrian Succession from seventeen forty to seventeen forty eight,

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Speaker 1: which developed into a global war. In the American colonies,

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Speaker 1: it was called King George's War, absorbing in the process

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Speaker 1: the War of Jenkin's Ear between the British and Spanish

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Speaker 1: and the Caribbean affected people as far away as India,

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Speaker 1: all because of mushrooms. Those quote toadstools, And here she's

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Speaker 1: referring to the fact that it was allegedly common among

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Speaker 1: especially English speakers, to take a very indiscriminating attitude toward mushrooms.

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Speaker 1: You know a lot of English speakers would just look

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Speaker 1: at all kinds of mushrooms and say, well, they're all

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Speaker 1: just toad stools. In terms of other political consequences. In history,

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Speaker 1: it's also been alleged that the Roman emperor Claudius was

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Speaker 1: poisoned with mushrooms, though this is disputed. The earliest accounts

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Speaker 1: indicate that on October thirteenth, fifty four CE, at the

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Speaker 1: age of sixty four, the emperor started to complain of

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Speaker 1: extreme stomach pain. He had diarrhea and vomiting. He had

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Speaker 1: trouble breathing, low blood pressure, and excessive salivation. And I

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Speaker 1: was reading a report in Scientific American from two thousand

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Speaker 1: and one about a conference presentation by a doctor named

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Speaker 1: William Valente from the University of Maryland School of Medicine,

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Speaker 1: and Valente argued that mushrooms containing musquarine were the cause

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Speaker 1: of his death according to the symptoms reported, and one

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Speaker 1: of the traditional explanations for what happened to Claudius was

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Speaker 1: that he was poisoned by his wife Agrippina in order

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Speaker 1: to clear the way for her son Nero to ascend

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Speaker 1: to the throne, and we all know good old Nero. Now,

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Speaker 1: the conclusion that Claudius died by some form of poisoning

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Speaker 1: does appear to at least usually have been the historical consensus,

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Speaker 1: but other experts doubt this one. We should note I

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Speaker 1: found a paper published by the Journal of the Royal

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Speaker 1: Society of Medicine in two thousand and two by Marmion

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Speaker 1: and Wiederman, and they wrote, quote, we see no reason

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Speaker 1: to believe that Claudius was murdered. All the features are

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Speaker 1: consistent with sudden death from cerebro vascular disease, which was

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Speaker 1: common in Roman times. And they also note that one

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Speaker 1: of the forms of evidence they cite is that physical

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Speaker 1: depictions of Claudius in the couple of years before he

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Speaker 1: died show visibly declining health that would be consistent with

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Speaker 1: the symptoms of this disease that they think would also

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Speaker 1: explain what people saw when he died. So we don't

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Speaker 1: know for sure. But as a strange note, apparently Emperor

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Speaker 1: Nero declared that mushrooms were the food of the gods.

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Speaker 1: And it's also kind of interesting because Claudius was deified,

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Speaker 1: meaning made into a god, basically immediately after his death. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean that does one could certainly interpret that as

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Speaker 1: nero being a very it being a very dastardly sneaky

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Speaker 1: thing to say, huh, or it could be a coincidence

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Speaker 1: because hey, I mean, mushrooms are kind of the food

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Speaker 1: of the gods. Mushrooms are delicious. We've gotten this far

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Speaker 1: into a podcast about mushrooms without me just like I

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Speaker 1: love mushrooms. I've been cooking with a lot of them

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Speaker 1: recently that we've been getting from a local CSA that

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Speaker 1: has been supplying us with shattaki mushrooms and oyster mushrooms,

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Speaker 1: which are so delicious if you just like roast them

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Speaker 1: lightly in the oven until they get a little bit

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Speaker 1: dried out and browned, and you can use them in anything.

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Speaker 1: They're they're like they're meatier than meat. They are certainly

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Speaker 1: like my family we are we're pescatarians, but we don't

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Speaker 1: even eat fish that often. So it's it's it's wonderful

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Speaker 1: to have mushrooms in a dish to create that that

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Speaker 1: that meaty texture and that meaty flavor. Yeah, so good,

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Speaker 1: all right, We're going to take a quick break, but

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Speaker 1: we'll be right back. And we're back. Now. Now we've

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Speaker 1: discussing these like terribly poisonous mushrooms, we should of course

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Speaker 1: stress that it's not just a you know, good versus

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Speaker 1: evil situation here. It's not just this mushroom will will

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Speaker 1: be delicious or have some sort of curative properties to it,

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Speaker 1: and this one will destroy you. There's a wide variety

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Speaker 1: of mushrooms out there, some of which if you eat

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Speaker 1: by accident, you're not going to die, You'll just get

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Speaker 1: violently ill. You know, there's a whole world of light

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Speaker 1: mushroom poisoning. Yes, there are certainly mushrooms out there that

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Speaker 1: are technically edible but not good to eat. And then

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Speaker 1: there's also something to be said for just everyone's particular

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Speaker 1: digestive system is going to react differently to different things.

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Speaker 1: So there, you know, the mushroom that one person finds

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Speaker 1: delicious and fulfilling might give someone else an upset stomach. Yeah. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: And in a way, the idea of mushroom foraging kind

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Speaker 1: of reminds us of something that would have been much

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Speaker 1: more common throughout history at times before, say, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: having like an FDA and widespread food inspection and a

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Speaker 1: very organized streamline process for supplying food stuffs to grocery

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Speaker 1: stores and all that. I think if you go back

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Speaker 1: in history, you'd find that eating was more it was

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Speaker 1: a little bit more a game of roulette than it

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Speaker 1: is today. You know that, Yeah, you were kind of

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Speaker 1: you always just had to wonder, is like, is what

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Speaker 1: I'm eating right now safe? Yeah? Indeed, But particularly I

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Speaker 1: guess the thing about mushroom foraging is, especially in the

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Speaker 1: modern connotation, it does really highlight that that risk, that

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Speaker 1: inherent risk of foraging for your food and it and

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Speaker 1: certainly if you look at some of these worst case

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Speaker 1: scenarios and these horror stories of people consuming just deadly

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Speaker 1: poison thinking that they found an edible mushroom or psychedelic mushroom,

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Speaker 1: you know, it may raise the question why do this

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Speaker 1: at all? You know, he is the reward truly worth

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Speaker 1: the risk? And I totally get this question. When my

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Speaker 1: wife became interested in wild mushroom foraging, my initial thought was, Okay,

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Speaker 1: chanterelle sound delicious. I think I had had them previously,

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Speaker 1: maybe once before, But are they really so good that

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Speaker 1: it's worth and thinking about the possibility of getting it

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Speaker 1: wrong or getting it deadly wrong, you know, even casting

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Speaker 1: aside the more serious risk of death and oregan damage.

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Speaker 1: Do I really just want to spend say an afternoon

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Speaker 1: or an evening, you know, violently ill in my stomach

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Speaker 1: because I wanted to have this, this experience. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I would guess that part of it, Like you can

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Speaker 1: sort of calculate your risks. You can't be one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent sure, but you can say, like, Okay, I'm plucking

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Speaker 1: a mushroom that looks like this. I think it's this species.

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Speaker 1: How close in appearance and in habitat and stuff like that,

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Speaker 1: Is it two things that are known to be poisonous? Yeah, yeah, certainly,

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Speaker 1: Like in our case, you know, the mushrooms that we

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Speaker 1: tend to gravitate towards are ones where at least in

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Speaker 1: our area. There are only so many things you could

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Speaker 1: mistake it for. And if you you can educate yourself

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Speaker 1: on what details to precisely look for. And then one

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Speaker 1: of the beauties of social media, one of the benefits

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Speaker 1: I point too, is that you can then take your

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Speaker 1: photograph of this specimen and share it with other enthusiasts

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Speaker 1: and even experts and say, what do I have here?

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Speaker 1: Help me identify this, etc. There are a lot of

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Speaker 1: resources at hand. Yeah, that is kind of wonderful. And

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Speaker 1: in the same way that the Internet can, of course

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Speaker 1: be the source of collective delusions and things like that,

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Speaker 1: it can also be the source of collective wisdom. And

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Speaker 1: one of the ways in which I've seen it best

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Speaker 1: used for collective wisdom is species identification. There's a whole

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Speaker 1: part of Twitter that's just people posting species identification photos

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Speaker 1: for snakes, for spiders, for wild mushrooms and things like that.

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Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah. Now, now, particularly with mushrooms, I was

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Speaker 1: looking around for people's thoughts on this, and I found

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Speaker 1: an article on the website for Ian magazine by the

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Speaker 1: author Cal Flynn, and the author writes, this whole whole

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Speaker 1: piece is just about mushroom foraging and the risk rewards

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Speaker 1: of it. And they write, quote, if the risk is

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Speaker 1: so huge and the payoffs so small, why do it?

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Speaker 1: The identification process is interesting, of course, and mushrooms are

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Speaker 1: pleasant enough to eat, but perhaps the real intrigue arises

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Speaker 1: from the risk itself and the skill required to sidestep it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: This ties in with something I've often wondered about in

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Speaker 1: two categories, both dogs and human children, And the question is,

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Speaker 1: why do so many dogs and human children just put

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Speaker 1: basically anything they find on the ground into their mouths?

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Speaker 1: You know, like, chances are not good that this is food,

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Speaker 1: but by god, I'm going to give it a go.

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Speaker 1: You know, this has always struck me as a as

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Speaker 1: a really maladaptive behavior. Why would we instinctually air on

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Speaker 1: putting things into the mouth instead of keeping them out

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Speaker 1: of the mouth. Wouldn't you think that we would instinctually

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Speaker 1: air more on the side of caution. It seems like

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Speaker 1: there's more risk in putting random, potentially poisonous or inedible

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Speaker 1: things into your mouth than there is reward in whatever

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Speaker 1: forsaken food energy you'd be missing out on if you

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Speaker 1: didn't put it in your mouth. But I don't know

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Speaker 1: who knows. I mean, maybe one thing is that the

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Speaker 1: conditions of modern life somehow encourage behaviors that wouldn't occur

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Speaker 1: very much in nature. I guess that's a possibility. Or

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe nibbling on all kinds of nutritionally ambiguous material

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Speaker 1: is just a lot less risky than it would seem

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Speaker 1: less risky than we assume. Maybe you can actually put

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Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff in your mouth and in your

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Speaker 1: body and most of the time you'll be fine. Well,

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Speaker 1: I want to stress that we are not advocating anyone

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Speaker 1: do this. No, no, no, no no no. But I am

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Speaker 1: told that experienced mushroom foragers sometimes perform a quick taste test,

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Speaker 1: tasting but not consuming a mushroom to help determine the variety.

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Speaker 1: And it's my understanding that it's it's done with potentially

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Speaker 1: toxic mushrooms as well. Again, do not try this because

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Speaker 1: we mentioned it. But but but but this, this would

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Speaker 1: make sense that you would be able to just taste

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Speaker 1: some of these specimens to see, I don't know, to detect,

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Speaker 1: say a bitterness, to help in the identification process. I

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Speaker 1: was also thinking about, okay, what has actually been observed

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Speaker 1: in wild animals in terms of just like tasting everything,

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Speaker 1: trying everything in their environment when there are so many

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Speaker 1: toxic plants and mushrooms in the world. And one thing

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Speaker 1: I came across that was kind of interesting was an

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Speaker 1: older article in the Alaska Fish and Wildlife News by

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Speaker 1: Riley Woodford called how Deer Eat Poisonous Plants, and it

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Speaker 1: cites an Alaska Wildlife biologists named Tom Hanley who talks

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Speaker 1: about how actually in the wild, deer eat toxic poisonous

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Speaker 1: plants just all the time. And Hanley says, quote, deer

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Speaker 1: will eat a little bit of almost everything out there,

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Speaker 1: including a few bites of various toxic plants. There seem

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Speaker 1: to be threshold levels for the toxicity of different plants,

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Speaker 1: and as long as deer eat below the threshold, they're okay.

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Speaker 1: So that's interesting. It's like, maybe you just eat toxic

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Speaker 1: things in moderation, nibble on a little bit of this

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Speaker 1: here and a little bit of that there, and over

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Speaker 1: time you can sort of build up some nutrition for

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Speaker 1: your body without reaching toxic levels on any one particular poison. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's also worth worth remembering that, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's going to vary from species to species. For instance,

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Speaker 1: with humans, poison ivy is generally no fun. But goats

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Speaker 1: goats are like, let me add it, I'm just gonna

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Speaker 1: eat it all. Goats eat poison ivy. Yeah, yeah, goats

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Speaker 1: will eat it up. Yeah. Now that that means you

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Speaker 1: need to not have goat milk from those goats, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: goats goats have no problem with it. Another outstanding example

429
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:46,920
Speaker 1: of this sort of thing. Are box turtles. Box turtles

430
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: are all about eating up some some some poisonous mushrooms,

431
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 1: for example, and you know it doesn't doesn't bother them

432
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: at all. But for a similar reason, don't go out

433
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 1: harvesting box turtles think thinking you're gonna make su about them. Yeah,

434
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 1: And the fact that different species are tolerant of different

435
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:07,600
Speaker 1: toxins is of course something that's mentioned in this article

436
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: as well, Like it talks about how mule deer, for example,

437
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:16,560
Speaker 1: are more tolerant of something called locoweed than pronghorn antelopear,

438
00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:20,160
Speaker 1: and it says that elk are more tolerant of Ponderosa

439
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 1: pine than bison are. And I think this would probably

440
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,399
Speaker 1: have to do with what their natural habitats are, what

441
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: the evolved relationships they are with different plants, and probably

442
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 1: also their nutritional needs. But there was a quote that

443
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:35,560
Speaker 1: Burtleson has in her book that I really liked. It

444
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: was from the American food writer John Thorne, who wrote, quote,

445
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:43,840
Speaker 1: all hunters put life at risk, but for mushroomers, the

446
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 1: amount of danger comes well after the quarry has been

447
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: run to ground. Finding the mushroom is the initiation, but

448
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:55,879
Speaker 1: eating it is the test. I think that's interesting comparing

449
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: it with hunting like that, you know, hunting is a

450
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:02,399
Speaker 1: dislocation of where the lens could set in, and this

451
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: connects to some Russian traditions that I'll talk about in

452
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,360
Speaker 1: a minute. But there's also a folk adage. I think

453
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 1: we may have mentioned it when we did our episodes

454
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: about psilocybin and psychedelics, But the folks saying is there

455
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 1: are old mushroom hunters, and there are bold mushroom hunters,

456
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters, which hammering

457
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: home the idea that mushroom foraging, while a highly rewarding

458
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:31,479
Speaker 1: activity to millions of people around the world, is something

459
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: that's best practiced with a kind of conservative mindset, like

460
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:38,440
Speaker 1: you do need to be cautious to understand what you're

461
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:41,400
Speaker 1: doing before you dive in head first. Yeah, I think

462
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 1: I've heard Paul's fame. It's echo this same nugget of wisdom.

463
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 1: And speaking of wisdom concerning that, you know, the consumption

464
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: of mushrooms and also plants, this brings to mind this

465
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 1: mythological figure from Chinese mythology that have brought it before,

466
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: and that's up Chinong, the divine farmer. It's also the

467
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 1: Chinese father of agriculture, and he's you know, he's credited

468
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 1: with inventing various important agricultural technologies, but also was said

469
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: to have consumed basically that the myth is he looked

470
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: around and he saw that the people were starving, they

471
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: were they were sickly, they needed medicine, they needed more food.

472
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 1: So what he did is he's set to work, consuming

473
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: hundreds of plants per day and as many as seventy

474
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: poisons a day in order to chart the medicinal properties

475
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: of the natural world in order to alleviate sickness and

476
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: starvation and disease. And you'll often find illustrations of him

477
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 1: kind of like chewing on the end of some sort

478
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:46,439
Speaker 1: of vegetation. And he's a really interesting character in the

479
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: artistic depictions as well, because he has these kind of

480
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: bovine features and even these kind of horn like protusions

481
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:55,360
Speaker 1: on his head, which apparently we see in some other

482
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 1: Chinese mythological figures as well. Well. This is great because

483
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: even though there may be there could be mythological elements

484
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:05,879
Speaker 1: to the specific story of Shinong, it highlights the fact

485
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: that at some point there had to be a lot

486
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:10,719
Speaker 1: of trial and error going into our knowledge about mushrooms, right,

487
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:14,160
Speaker 1: you couldn't just like look at them and reason from

488
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:16,919
Speaker 1: that knowledge. And like, people were making decisions about what

489
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 1: mushrooms were safe to eat long before we had laboratory

490
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: testing procedures and all that. So there are just years

491
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:30,120
Speaker 1: and years and many historical recapitulations of painful, horrifying trial

492
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:34,479
Speaker 1: and error in mushroom foraging. In fact, Bertilson writes about this,

493
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: she talks about specifically what was going on in the

494
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 1: literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. In the medical literature,

495
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 1: she says, quote, it is full of accounts of unsuspecting

496
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: foragers coming home with their prizes, only to find themselves

497
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: hours or even minutes later, laughing hysterically or bent over

498
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 1: with intestinal pains, unable to move from chair to bed.

499
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: So serious were cases of poisonings in France that in

500
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: Paris in seventeen fifty four, the city fathers passed an

501
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 1: ordinance prohibiting the sale of any mushrooms in the markets. So, like,

502
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: there's so much mushroom poisoning. People just trying to like

503
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: figure out what you're supposed to eat and not or

504
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 1: or maybe disregarding what was already known by other people.

505
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 1: Uh that they were they were, they were just like, okay,

506
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: we're saying nix on the mushrooms, no mushrooms at all.

507
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, indeed indeed what was known and perhaps forgotten.

508
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: Uh Yeah. It's it's interesting too to think of, like

509
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: just the very early days of humanity. As the human

510
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: expansion spreads out of our our you know, our ancient

511
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: places of origin, the human these humans and and and

512
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: and pre humans would have encountered just new environments that

513
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,479
Speaker 1: means new species, new substances that they would then have

514
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 1: to test out and figure out again like what is

515
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: what is beneficial, what is dangerous? You know, what is food?

516
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 1: And what is the potential medicine as they continue to

517
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: spread out in the world. Yeah, and I think this

518
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: is something you see throughout the history of mushroom literature

519
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: is a gradual process of ruling things in So in

520
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century French example, I mentioned in seventeen fifty four,

521
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: they said, okay, no mushrooms at all in the markets,

522
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 1: but you know, mushrooms are good. So this was eventually amended,

523
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: and Burtleston mentions that in eighteen O eight, they changed

524
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 1: the law to allow seven species, in particular in markets

525
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 1: in Paris, and the mushrooms had to pass inspection by

526
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: police appointed experts in order to be sold. Now, that

527
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: would make for a good historical television show, the Mushroom Police.

528
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 1: All right, we're going to take a quick break, but

529
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. All right, we're back. You know,

530
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: there's something I've sometimes gonna wondered about when people really

531
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: enjoy meat, you know, people who are big carnivores like

532
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 1: I just love a good steak, if part of the

533
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: enjoyment is a sort of sublimated, implied sense of violence

534
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 1: or struggle in the idea of eating the meat, because

535
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 1: you know, if you're eating meat, there was some violence

536
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: that happened at some point. Something is a little bit

537
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 1: dangerous about your food. And it makes me wonder if maybe,

538
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 1: in the back of our minds, there's something slightly psychologically

539
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: similar going on with mushrooms. I mean, probably not, because

540
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 1: not if you're buying button mushrooms from the store or something.

541
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just like any other crop at this point.

542
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: But maybe with forage to mushrooms, there's a similar danger

543
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: running underneath the skin. Oh, maybe so yeah. Yeah. Now

544
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 1: to come back to to cal Flynn's piece in Ian,

545
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 1: the author there also compared it to the consumption of

546
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 1: a particular meat, the Japanese delicacy of fugu, you know,

547
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 1: in which the risk and the skill is part of it.

548
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 1: You know, It's like, is the is the is the

549
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: chef in this case? Are they skilled enough to pull

550
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: this off, to remove the dangerous parts and serve only

551
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 1: the delicious parts? And so so that author ties this

552
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 1: in to the uh to our relationship with mushroom foraging. Now,

553
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: now to come back just briefly to just the idea

554
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 1: of there there's seeming to be an uptick in mushroom enthusiasm,

555
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 1: you know, especially what we see online and all, I

556
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 1: just wanted to share a few more thoughts about it.

557
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 1: First of all, I do think there is probably a

558
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 1: connection here to the increased mainstream interest in psychedelic mushrooms

559
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: and the increased and promising clinical research, which we outlined

560
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: what was it last year in a several parts series

561
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 1: on psychedelics. I feel like that, I feel I feel

562
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: like that is part of the scenario, at least with

563
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 1: some people. Also, we should always drive home that humans

564
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: have always been fascinated with mushrooms, So there's nothing new

565
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: about mushroom fascination. We see it in ancient art, we

566
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: see it in Super Mario games. So it's it's it's

567
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: just part of who we are. And if you want

568
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 1: to read more about this last point, it was touched

569
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 1: on in a New York magazine article by Sydney Gore

570
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: with the wonderful title why are my streams taking over

571
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: my social media feed, my medicine cabinet and my closet,

572
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: referring to like fashions I believe there, Oh, like those

573
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: fungus hats, you know, like Paul Stamens squares. Oh yes, yes,

574
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 1: Paul Stament's fashions. I also found an interesting article about

575
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 1: a huge uptick in Scottish mushroom foraging steep rise in

576
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: Scot's Enjoying Fruits of Foraging by Maggie Ritchie. And this

577
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 1: article put it this way, quoting Terry Carmichael, resident forager

578
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: for Wild Tastes at the Carmichael Estate and in Lancashire quote.

579
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: More people were trying to get back to their roots

580
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 1: and to nature since the pandemics started, and we reconnect

581
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: with nature. There are so many foods that are right

582
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: on our doorstep that we see every day and can

583
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 1: bring into our kitchens. They're all packed with nutrients far

584
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: more than any sold in supermarkets. And it's also worth

585
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 1: noting that articles speak. You find articles speaking to the

586
00:33:55,160 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: rising quote hipness of mushroom foraging in twenty nineteen and earlier,

587
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 1: so a lot of this was already in motion. For instance,

588
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 1: there was the Guardian article titled the Gospel of Mushrooms,

589
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: How foraging became Hip, and that was from October of

590
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:12,319
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. And for my own part, I have to

591
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,160
Speaker 1: point out that my family took a guided foraging exercise,

592
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: like a guided hike through an area where they were

593
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: known to be some meedable mushrooms in earlier in twenty nineteen,

594
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 1: I think summer of twenty nineteen as well. There's apparently

595
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:27,439
Speaker 1: been just overall kind of a demographic shift on top

596
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 1: of this, where mushroom foraging was previously the kind of

597
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: hobby that you would often see older individuals engaged in,

598
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: and that has shifted a bit younger in recent years.

599
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 1: So part of this goes back to pre pandemic times

600
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: to twenty nineteen, and these trends but I definitely also

601
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: to come back to what you were saying before, that

602
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: would connect it to trends we've seen in self sufficiency

603
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:56,240
Speaker 1: and production of food stuffs in the home or around

604
00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 1: the home. The same way there was sort of a

605
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:03,320
Speaker 1: craze for like people making sour dough bread, people growing

606
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 1: herb gardens and things like that. This year when I think,

607
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:09,840
Speaker 1: I think suddenly a lot of people realize that it

608
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:13,400
Speaker 1: might be much easier than they had previously thought to

609
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: acquire food items from places other than the grocery store. Yeah. Yeah,

610
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 1: I also want to mention that that that foraging course

611
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:25,759
Speaker 1: that my family took, that the high guided hike, it

612
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 1: was kind of a varied group. You know. You had

613
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 1: some people who are just kind of nature enthusiasts, but

614
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,719
Speaker 1: then there's one guy that was like straight up survivalist, like, yeah,

615
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 1: he was there to learn. I mean, he was there

616
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: I think for a little socialization as well, you know,

617
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: but he was also one of these guys who was like, Yep,

618
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 1: it's coming and I'm gonna I'm gonna be the one

619
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:44,319
Speaker 1: to know where the mushrooms are when the Y two

620
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:47,319
Speaker 1: K bug hits. I'm gonna be here with my gun

621
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 1: mushroom hunting. Yeah, and I think we could all relate

622
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:52,839
Speaker 1: late to that. You know, we do a little uh,

623
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: you know, doom fantasizing, and we're like, oh man, if

624
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:58,239
Speaker 1: it's suddenly Corny McCarthy's The Road, I want to know

625
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:02,360
Speaker 1: what's up, you know, especially as we previously mentioned, you know,

626
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: fungi are gonna gonna presumably do do all right if

627
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: the sun gets blocked out right, This is a great point.

628
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:12,279
Speaker 1: I didn't think about this. So the in Corian McCarthy's

629
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:14,560
Speaker 1: The Road, the earth is kind of dead. The sky

630
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: appears to have been, I don't know, clouded by some

631
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: kind of particulate matter. Did you ever have a personal

632
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:23,759
Speaker 1: theory as to what the event was in the road.

633
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: Was it volcanic eruptions or an impact from space? Or

634
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:32,279
Speaker 1: I always lean more towards nuclear war just because they

635
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:34,879
Speaker 1: have those He had those, really, I mean, the whole

636
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:37,720
Speaker 1: book is beautiful and dark, and so has those richly,

637
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: But those they has these deposits of just exceedingly rich language,

638
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 1: and there are a few they are describing, like what

639
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 1: it's like in the cities, where like the cities seem

640
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: to be a very toxic place to be, and he

641
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: talks about like people rummaging through the rubble to get

642
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 1: you know, probably radioactive foods that they can eat, that

643
00:36:57,480 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: sort of thing. So I kind of I would tend

644
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 1: to lean towards that, but he does keep it vague

645
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:04,839
Speaker 1: as to what exactly happened. Right well, whatever it is,

646
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: something has darkened the skies and this of course has

647
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 1: killed all the plant life, so nobody can grow any

648
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: food to eat. But yeah, I would be thinking, you

649
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: shouldn't mushrooms be doing awesome? Yeah, yeah, there's no. I

650
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 1: don't think there's any mention of them growing anywhere, but

651
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 1: one would hope. So it would be. It would be

652
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:25,280
Speaker 1: almost kind of a comical scene right where the cannibals

653
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: are hanging out and they're like, whoa, guys, there are

654
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: mushrooms everywhere. We'll have to eat babies anymore? Is Sean

655
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: trell season, Yeah, hand of the woods. So anyway, so

656
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:41,600
Speaker 1: there's the survival aspect of it, certainly, but you know,

657
00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:44,840
Speaker 1: there's just fascination with nature. But I would say that

658
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:47,240
Speaker 1: another huge part of this, and something we're gonna continue

659
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 1: to discuss here, is that foraging would seem to be

660
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,280
Speaker 1: an innate part of the human experience, and we engage

661
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:55,879
Speaker 1: in it in various ways. Mushroom hunting stands out as

662
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:58,400
Speaker 1: a as a thoroughly authentic example of this sort of

663
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 1: foraging behavior. But again, we can we can all identify

664
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 1: with activities that are like foraging, that are oddly satisfying. Again,

665
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:10,400
Speaker 1: like jigsaw puzzles, lego pieces. Shopping, even going to the

666
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 1: grocery store can be an act of foraging. It can

667
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 1: sort of engage some of those same circuits. I feel

668
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:20,440
Speaker 1: like it certainly varies from person to person. For example,

669
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:23,440
Speaker 1: I've been fascinated by the way that some people really

670
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:27,839
Speaker 1: enjoy shopping, you know, they enjoy like shopping for clothes

671
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 1: or whatever. And that's always been very mysterious to me.

672
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 1: I don't enjoy that at all. It seems like a

673
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 1: really irritating, tedious activity that I don't do unless I

674
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: absolutely have to. But then I realized, actually I can

675
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 1: relate to it, because I really enjoy under at least

676
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: like less stressful circumstances. I really enjoy shopping for food.

677
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,520
Speaker 1: I like going out to find like nice produce, you know,

678
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:53,879
Speaker 1: going to the farmers markets, you know, finding a really

679
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:56,760
Speaker 1: good looking cucumber or a bunch of mushrooms or something. So,

680
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: so I think I do actually relate to that foraging

681
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:03,440
Speaker 1: shopping instinct is just with different kinds of items, and

682
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 1: I guess that probably works out differently from for different people.

683
00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:08,720
Speaker 1: I know some people who love going to the hardware store.

684
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: I don't really get that either. But you know that's

685
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: like a very classically like dad, things like oh yeah,

686
00:39:14,239 --> 00:39:17,239
Speaker 1: the hardware store. Well, I know you and I back

687
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:19,960
Speaker 1: when we could actually physically go in there. Going to

688
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 1: the last video store in Atlanta, video drome, you go

689
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: in there and forage for particular you know, movies we're

690
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 1: interested in. Saying like that, that is is I think,

691
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 1: very comparable to foraging. Very interesting. Why Yeah, so I

692
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 1: love the videodrome and the produce aisle, but I do

693
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 1: not love the hardware store or the clothes aisle. I

694
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:43,640
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, maybe it comes back to again this idea,

695
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:46,320
Speaker 1: is there a reward? Is there something that I'm working

696
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 1: towards getting that is meaningful to me sustenance, either in

697
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 1: a food sense or in a B movie sense. But

698
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 1: clearly for many people there is a lot of pleasure

699
00:39:57,120 --> 00:39:59,880
Speaker 1: in mushroom foraging that is not related to the reward.

700
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:03,360
Speaker 1: It is related to the activity itself, and this is

701
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:05,360
Speaker 1: something that kept coming up for me when I was

702
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:09,279
Speaker 1: reading about the Russian traditions of mushroom foraging. This is

703
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 1: what I referenced at the beginning of the episode. But

704
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:15,359
Speaker 1: the term the quiet hunt. Apparently, mushroom foraging is very

705
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 1: popular in Russia, and it's often been called this the

706
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 1: quiet hunt. I like that Burtleson mentions this tradition in

707
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 1: her book when she's quoting a passage from Vladimir Nabakov's

708
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 1: memoir Speak Memory, which he published in nineteen fifty one,

709
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: and in this book he writes about his own mother's

710
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 1: obsession with mushroom foraging. Quote. One of her greatest pleasures

711
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 1: in summer was the very Russian sport of hodi pogribi,

712
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:47,360
Speaker 1: looking for mushrooms fried in butter and thickened with sour cream.

713
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 1: Her delicious fines appeared regularly on the dinner table. Not

714
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 1: that the gustatory moment mattered much. Her main delight was

715
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:59,800
Speaker 1: in the quest. Burtleson also quotes the Russian American p

716
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 1: the Attrician Valentina Pavlovna Wasson, who of course was married

717
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:06,879
Speaker 1: to the famed microphile our Gordon Wasson. There were sort

718
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 1: of amateur mushroom expert team in the mid nineteen hundreds.

719
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 1: I think that they were also heavily involved in spreading

720
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: the word about psilocybin mushrooms to much of the world.

721
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:22,600
Speaker 1: But speaking of her childhood, you know she came from

722
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 1: a Russian family. Valentina Pavlovna wrote that quote, when we

723
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: were naughty, our mother would punish us by forbidding us

724
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 1: to go mushrooming. Great. You know, it's like it's like

725
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 1: a video game. Yea. And Bertleson in her chapter identifies

726
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 1: a couple of possible factors influencing the widespread passion for

727
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 1: mushroom foraging in Russia. One of them that she highlights

728
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,840
Speaker 1: is the number of fast days mandated under the Russian

729
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 1: Orthodox Church, which would specifically, it would imply that Christians

730
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: were expected not to eat meat on these days, and

731
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: mushrooms would provide a luxurious meatiness to a plate that

732
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:04,320
Speaker 1: you know, when you can't eat meat itself. But also

733
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:07,320
Speaker 1: just general poverty leading to that same lack of meat.

734
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:11,240
Speaker 1: But there's also a thing that appears to go beyond

735
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:15,280
Speaker 1: culinary preferences. I was reading an article by Ellen Berry

736
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 1: in The New York Times for the Moscow Journal called

737
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: a hypnotizing hunt leaves Russians bewildered. This is from two

738
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, and Berry writes that practitioners of the

739
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:31,799
Speaker 1: quiet hunt quote routinely becomes so hypnotized that they get

740
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: hopelessly lost. H Yeah, apparently Russian media is full of

741
00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: stories like this. She cites a couple I'm just I'm

742
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:42,360
Speaker 1: going to read from her article here quote. Earlier this month,

743
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:45,839
Speaker 1: a sodden and unshaven man emerged from the woods near

744
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:50,759
Speaker 1: the southern Russian village of Gorriacchi Kliuch, telling rescuers that

745
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 1: he spent three nights perched in trees to get away

746
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:57,439
Speaker 1: from jackals. A similar tale came from the Taiga near

747
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 1: Bratsk in Siberia, where a twenty two year old man

748
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 1: wandered for five days, covering himself with pine boughs at

749
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: night to ward off frost bite. Eleven time zones to

750
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: the west, near the Baltic Sea, a search and rescue

751
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 1: team found an elderly couple in a swamp where they

752
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 1: had spent the night. The wife in what officials described

753
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,800
Speaker 1: as a state of panic. It happens every mushroom season,

754
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 1: and so yeah, very interesting. Barry writes that for a

755
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 1: lot of mushroom hunters in Russia, the foraging activity induces

756
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: a kind of trance state. I don't know how literally

757
00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 1: to take that, but that's what she says, and it

758
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 1: does seem to be consistent with what a lot of

759
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: people have written about the Quiet Hunt. And it's interesting

760
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:45,400
Speaker 1: that there's a kind of disconnect because, of course, ancient

761
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,799
Speaker 1: mushroom foraging practices would have been established by people who

762
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,240
Speaker 1: were probably better at navigating the wild landscape and finding

763
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:55,320
Speaker 1: their way home following the angle of the sun, for instance,

764
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 1: while in modern times we have lost a lot of

765
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: these wayfinding skills because we don't need them very often,

766
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 1: and instead we rely on technology, which is not always reliable.

767
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: So autumn comes and people go in, they go to

768
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 1: the woods, they trance up, and they get lost. And

769
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 1: the article quotes a rescue worker named Alexanders Manovski who

770
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: calls the people who get lost quote the children of asphalt. No,

771
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:23,920
Speaker 1: of course, with stories like this you also just have to,

772
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:27,239
Speaker 1: you know, wonder with some of these stories, people might

773
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:30,279
Speaker 1: just be doing other things and then later they say, oh, yeah,

774
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:32,799
Speaker 1: I got lost while mushroom foraging. There are some there

775
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 1: are allegations in the article of some people's particular stories

776
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 1: where people are like, well, they were just on a

777
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:41,239
Speaker 1: bender or something. But but clearly it does seem to

778
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:43,879
Speaker 1: happen fairly often. Well. I mean, one is of course

779
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 1: reminded of the fact that if you go on a

780
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 1: nature walk, you you you may get lucky and find

781
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:52,800
Speaker 1: some from chanterells or whatnot growing close to the trail,

782
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:55,800
Speaker 1: but in all likelihood you're gonna you're gonna spot that

783
00:44:56,480 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 1: tell tale yellow patch a little further off the trail,

784
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 1: and then you may wander off the trail to go

785
00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 1: and get them. And of course leaving the trail can

786
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 1: is one way to get a little closer to becoming

787
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:12,439
Speaker 1: lost in the forest. I mean, this is how isn't

788
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: there there's a part in the Hobbit I think where

789
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: basically the same thing happens, except it's the series camp Fire,

790
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:21,320
Speaker 1: which of course has parallels to patches of mushrooms in

791
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 1: the wood well, and it specifically highlights things about forging

792
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:28,560
Speaker 1: strategies that we observe in humans and in other animals,

793
00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: about say the density of rewards in certain areas, like

794
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: probably the closer you stay to the occupied area, the

795
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 1: more picked over the stores are going to be. So

796
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 1: you might need to make a little bit of a

797
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 1: journey to go to places that haven't been picked over

798
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: by other people already. And the farther you get away,

799
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: the more the risks multiply, the more energy you expend. Yeah,

800
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:52,400
Speaker 1: and then the next thing you know, you got the

801
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 1: head of a bear. The little mushroom man has transformed you.

802
00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna have to interrupt the conversation right there. Again.

803
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:03,799
Speaker 1: We had to split this conversation into two episodes, so

804
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 1: expect the second half on the next publication day for

805
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:09,840
Speaker 1: Stuff to Bowl Your Mind. But in the meantime, feel

806
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:12,239
Speaker 1: free to write in we'd love to hear from everybody

807
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 1: on the topic of mushroom foraging, your experiences with mushroom foraging, etc.

808
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 1: I should also point out that if you if you're

809
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,279
Speaker 1: interested in merchandise for the show, we actually have a

810
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:25,960
Speaker 1: mushroom theme Stuff to Blow your Mind logo T shirt.

811
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:28,840
Speaker 1: It's kind of black light themed. If you go to

812
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 1: I think if you go to stuff to Blow your

813
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:34,360
Speaker 1: Mind dot com, it'll still refer you to this iHeart

814
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:38,080
Speaker 1: listing for our show, and there should be a store,

815
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:40,840
Speaker 1: a selection that you can You can click on store

816
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:42,879
Speaker 1: and it'll take you to that store. So if you're

817
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:45,560
Speaker 1: interested in that sort of thing, that's where you'll find it.

818
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 1: Huge things, As always to our excellent audio producer Seth

819
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:51,439
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch

820
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:53,839
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

821
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:56,439
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hello,

822
00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:59,120
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact. That's Stuff to Blow

823
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:10,600
Speaker 1: your Mind. Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio.

824
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:13,879
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

825
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.