WEBVTT - From the Vault: Mushroom Foraging, Part 1 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.800 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.119 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.280 Time to go into the vault for an older episode 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:15.160 of the show. This is part one of a series 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:19.680 we did on mushroom foraging. This was originally published September fifteenth, 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.000 twenty twenty. It's actually I feel like around this time 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:24.919 last year we were doing a lot of wandering in 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.600 the Woods related episodes. We were yeah, yeah, because we'd 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:31.360 done the Leshy, and then we were talking about mushroom 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:34.839 foraging as like a human behavior and a human cultural practice. 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.680 Pretty it's it's pretty fun. This is part one, and 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:46.920 our next Vault episode will be part two. And a 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.879 little notice here at the beginning, this is an insert 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.920 because Robert and I we started talking about mushroom foraging 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:54.560 and we ended up going on for like more than 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.440 two hours. So we're splitting this episode into two parts. 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.600 And here is your warnings, so be sure to not 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:03.680 only listen to this one, but come back next time. 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:17.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. Hey, 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:19.760 welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.360 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.720 on the Quiet Time. That's right, we're gonna be talking 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:31.520 about mushroom foraging, which we kind of touched on very 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.480 briefly in our recent episode about liking, and then I 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.080 realized we just had to come back to it because 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.800 I guess the basic genesis for this is that I've 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.440 noticed a lot more mushroom talk and a lot a 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:48.760 lot more mushroom activity this year. Part of it has 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.640 been social media, for sure. I've noticed people I know 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:57.080 taking photographs of interesting mushrooms that they've spotted, sometimes correctly 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.760 identifying them or even harvesting them. And I have to 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:03.400 admit that my own family we've gotten into identifying mushrooms 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:05.520 on hikes, and we've even done a little bit of 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:11.360 foraging ourselves, but only with racie mushrooms and chanterelles. In 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:16.240 a way, mushroom foraging is an ideal social distancing activity, right. 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.200 It's something you can do that in a way feels 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:21.679 social because you take them home and you take pictures 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:23.320 of them and you put them on the internet and 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.080 everybody thinks it's beautiful and they comment on them, and 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:28.959 it's a way of interacting in a significant productive way 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.239 with the world outside your house, but you don't have 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.240 to get close to anybody. Yeah, yeah, it's I think 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.720 part of it has certainly been COVID nineteen restrictions on 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.480 our lives, because some of us are doing a lot 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.919 more walks through either parks or you know, or hiking 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.000 trails if we have access to them and we're able 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:48.320 to get to those, but even through our own neighborhoods, 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:54.560 Like we've harvested some raci mushrooms from just our immediate 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:59.960 neighborhood environment just walking walking around, spotting them and then 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.120 ideing them, and then also just ideing various other things 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.760 that were not attempting to collect. It's a great it's 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:08.639 a great way to occupy your time to sort of 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.160 have It's kind of like the Pokemon Go of the Wild. 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:16.280 It gives you sort of goals to achieve on your walks, 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.640 things to chronicle, and for most of us anyway, a 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:23.800 new topic to immerse ourselves in, you know, because prior 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.120 to the last couple of years or so, I really 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.400 didn't know much about mushrooms outside of like the few 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.280 varieties that I had previously consumed or that you can 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:35.760 find at the grocery store or order on a pizza. 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:40.280 But of course that's only a slim variety of the 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:44.640 mushroom whirld. There are some delicious, edible wild mushrooms that 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:49.120 have resisted cultivation. Yeah, totally, And there are some interesting 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.480 reasons for that too, like one of them being that, 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.840 tying back to our recent Lin episode, some mushrooms that 0:03:55.880 --> 0:04:00.400 are delicious to eat exist in symbiotic relationships with other organisms, 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:03.800 specifically often like plants and trees that are difficult to 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.200 recreate in a controlled environment. So you can't just start 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.320 a chantrelle farm. Or maybe you could, but you know 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:15.000 your yield would be inconsistent. It's just really difficult to do. Absolutely. 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.840 Another thing, though, is it's funny that we think of 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:22.359 mushroom foraging as sort of the natural world version of 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:24.960 Pokemon Go. It's it's a sign of like how sort 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:29.280 of microchif tamed our brains are. That Isn't Pokemon Go 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.320 really a sort of substitute or surrogate for this ancient 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.520 instinct we have to scour the land for bits of 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:41.400 edible plant matter and other life. It absolutely is, and 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.240 and so that's why I encourage everyone to, you know, 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:46.960 keep listening to this episode even if you're you're not 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:49.720 that into mushrooms, you're not interested in mushroom foraging, because 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.520 we're going to discuss mushroom foraging, but we're also going 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:56.599 to discuss foraging behavior, uh in a broader sense. And 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.400 I think that's something that that that certainly you can 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.200 gauge into. So when you're on a walk and you're 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:06.120 looking for something, be it birds or mushrooms or non 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:10.159 existent Pokemon lurking, you know somewhere in the GPS domain. 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:13.720 And I think it also comes into play in shopping, 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.640 in sorting through a big box of unsorted legos to 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.000 find the pieces you're looking for. I mean, it pops 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.760 up in so many different human activities and it captivates us. 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:28.159 It is, it latches into a part of our neural 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.719 hardware because it is part of what we're supposed to do. 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:35.840 This is interesting. I wish I had thought about this 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.400 before we started talking, so I could research it a bit, 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.479 But it just occurred to me. What makes the difference 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:46.440 between search activities that are intensely pleasurable and search activities 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:49.680 that are maddening. Like I'm thinking about search activities such 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.000 as locating a specific item within your house or a 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:57.080 given room that is not fun, that feels awful, you know, 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.359 it's like where are my keys? You just you just 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.120 want it to end as soon as possible. But on 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.880 the other hand, of course, foraging for mushrooms, playing Pokemon Go, 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:09.160 or even sometimes digging through a container of legos that 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.279 can be very fun, or searching for a puzzle piece. 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:13.919 So what's the difference. I mean, it might be the 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.839 difference between the search for the thing lost and the 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:21.440 search for the thing not yet obtained. I'm not sure, 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:23.839 But I also have noticed, I think I've mentioned this 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.120 on the show before. I have found that jigsaw puzzles 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:29.840 the process of looking for the correct piece. For me, 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.640 I feel it's both like it's both kind of mentally 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:37.400 exhausting and frustrating and yet at the same time completely enthralling. 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.880 So in the past I found myself helping to put 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.839 together a jigsaw puzzle and not really like, I'm asking myself, 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.000 Am I enjoying this? Am I having a good time? 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.840 I'm not sure, but I also cannot stop. I mean, 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:53.560 I guess one thing we're highlighting is the sometimes fuzzy 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.839 line between work and play a lot of you ever 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.640 notice how much video game time is taken up with 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.799 things that like are basically like they would be work 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.640 in the real world, but something about the way they're 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:09.760 framed just makes it a game instead. Yeah. So many 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.400 of these games, especially, you know, they want you to 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.280 play regularly. It's not just play through the story, it's 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.360 play every day. So they give you these little, basically 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.080 grocery lists of things to do, and you know, sometimes 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:26.160 you see players complaining about it, and rightfully so, but 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.360 but also there's something kind of addictive about it, like, Okay, 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.600 I need to go out. I need to you know, 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.040 find and scrap eight hats in this post apocalyptic world, 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.640 you know, something like that, and uh, and it's you 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.920 can weirdly get into it. Yeah, I gotta break rocks 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.600 in my digital domain. Though I guess that that sort 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.920 of introduces the slot machine element, because if it's exciting, 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.480 if there are variable, intermittent rewards, I think that's the 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.280 candy in there. Yeah, I mean it was. Sometimes there's 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.400 like a random the reward is random, but like sometimes 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.960 like in Fallout seventy six, which which I know fans 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:03.000 kind of go back and forth on this particular game 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:04.800 and the way it's designed and all in that elements 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:06.760 in it, But like a lot of the sort of 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.280 grocery list assignments you have, there's there's not really a 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.600 random rewards. You know exactly what you're gonna get, Like 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.560 you're gonna get so many like you know, atoms that 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.720 you can spend in the store or whatever. You know 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.800 exactly what you're working for with it. So in that regard, 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:23.920 I feel like it kind of falls in line with foraging. 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.120 But then again, foraging is also an exercise in not 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.760 necessarily knowing what you're going to get or knowing what 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:31.880 quantities you're going to get. And we'll get into that. 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.120 Well yeah, I mean what if one of these digital 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.280 rocks you broke could kill you? Yeah? Yeah, And that's 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.719 going to be a huge part of mushrooms here. But 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:42.880 before we get go any further, I do want to 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:45.320 just show us a couple more things. First of all, yes, 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.840 photography is a tremendously fun activity to engage in with 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:53.720 mushrooms when you're scavenging them and finding them and charting 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.480 them in the wild. Spore prints are also a lot 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:59.079 of fun. Now, this is when you you can look 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.120 up guides on how to do this online, but where 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:03.480 you collect like the cap of the mushroom, and then 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:04.800 you put it on a sheet of paper and then 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.040 cover it with like a glass container or a bowl 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.600 or something, and then the spores leave a print of 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.480 the mushroom cap on the sheet of paper, which you 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.440 can then photograph and share online or even you know. 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.160 I think they're ways to preserve it as well. Noting 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:22.640 the emission of spores is a great reminder of something 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:24.800 we've talked about before, which is that when you harvest 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:28.160 a mushroom, you are not harvesting the entire organism that 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.800 you know, the fungus is a web of things that 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.400 live under the ground, usually or in some kind of 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:38.760 decomposing matter or parasitic on another organism. The mushroom that 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:41.319 you collect is the fruiting body that's like an organ 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:46.040 of the overall fungus. It's almost, I mean, not exactly analogous, 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.240 but the closest analogy I think would be that it's 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.760 like you're breaking off the sexual organs of an animal 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.720 and walking away with them. Now that being said, I 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:59.559 want to stress something that mushroom foragers often stress regarding 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.320 the fruiting body, and that is that you're not going 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:08.160 to be hurting the organism by by harvesting the mushrooms themselves. 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.720 Now that being said before, first of all, before you 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.200 engage in any kind of mushroom foraging, be aware that 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:20.840 in some places it is prohibited some places or maybe 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.000 not going to be hipped to this idea that you're 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:25.199 not really hurting the organism. They're still saying, well, you're 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.080 taking away from this natural environment that is protected in 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.480 this space. The other huge thing we want to stress 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.080 before we go any further is that while we're going 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:38.040 to be discussing mushroom foraging for mushrooms that one would 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:42.760 then consume for culinary or medicinal purposes, do not engage 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.360 in this, you know, just based on anything we've told 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.760 you here. As we are going to outline shortly, there 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:51.600 are some risks involved there if you if you pick 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:56.720 the wrong mushroom, some dire consequences can occur, and you 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.720 just really need to know, you need to go down 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.280 that road with professionals who know what they're talking about 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:06.600 with mushroom foraging, and you know, don't just run off 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.640 into the wild. Based on listening to this episode. Yes, 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.240 do not choose to put any particular thing in your 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.679 mouth because of anything we say here today. Right, So, 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.839 speaking of this this danger factor, uh, yeah, I want 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:22.880 to stress that while while I myself have enjoyed engaging 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.760 in mushroom identification and the limited foraging, that my family 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.520 feels comfortable with, yeah, to really, you know, drive the 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.680 nail home here. If you eat the wrong mushroom that 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:37.200 you find in the wild, you will die, because you know, 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:42.640 most notoriously, there's a variety of mushroom known as destroying angels, 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:45.839 and and these will indeed destroy you should you make 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.920 make if you should mistake them for an edible mushroom. 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.360 The deadly webcap mushroom as another example. This one has 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.640 been mistaken for edible chantrelle mushrooms. It's even been mistaken 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.960 for psilocybin mushrooms before, and it has a horrifying reputation 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.560 for causing irreversible kidney failure in those who consume it, 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:08.640 including some very notable cases such as that of English 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.960 author Nicholas Adams. Yeah, there are actually a number of 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:17.240 historically notable alleged mushroom poisonings that I've been reading about, 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.880 specifically in a book by Cynthia D. Burtleson called Mushroom 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.640 a Global History from Reaction Books in twenty thirteen. I 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:29.280 think it was also distributed by the University of Chicago Press. 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.280 But Burtleson at one point writes about how the French 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:36.360 philosopher Voltaire, who lives sixteen ninety four to seventeen seventy eight, 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.839 once wrote, quote a dish of mushrooms changed the destiny 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.920 of Europe. Now, how could that possibly be true? Well, 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:48.560 he was talking about the poisoning of a specific king 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.760 of the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg King, Charles the 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.520 sixth of Austria. To pick up with what Burtleson writes, 0:12:55.600 --> 0:13:01.200 quote who ate deathcap mushrooms? Amanita falloitties the subsequent War 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:05.319 of the Austrian Succession from seventeen forty to seventeen forty eight, 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:09.280 which developed into a global war. In the American colonies, 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.760 it was called King George's War, absorbing in the process 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.960 the War of Jenkin's Ear between the British and Spanish 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.320 and the Caribbean affected people as far away as India, 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:24.520 all because of mushrooms. Those quote toadstools, And here she's 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.439 referring to the fact that it was allegedly common among 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:33.839 especially English speakers, to take a very indiscriminating attitude toward mushrooms. 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:35.960 You know a lot of English speakers would just look 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.800 at all kinds of mushrooms and say, well, they're all 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:43.679 just toad stools. In terms of other political consequences. In history, 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.880 it's also been alleged that the Roman emperor Claudius was 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.880 poisoned with mushrooms, though this is disputed. The earliest accounts 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.200 indicate that on October thirteenth, fifty four CE, at the 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:58.040 age of sixty four, the emperor started to complain of 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.720 extreme stomach pain. He had diarrhea and vomiting. He had 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:06.280 trouble breathing, low blood pressure, and excessive salivation. And I 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.120 was reading a report in Scientific American from two thousand 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:13.080 and one about a conference presentation by a doctor named 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.880 William Valente from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:21.600 and Valente argued that mushrooms containing musquarine were the cause 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:24.800 of his death according to the symptoms reported, and one 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:27.880 of the traditional explanations for what happened to Claudius was 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.680 that he was poisoned by his wife Agrippina in order 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.320 to clear the way for her son Nero to ascend 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.800 to the throne, and we all know good old Nero. Now, 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:41.400 the conclusion that Claudius died by some form of poisoning 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:45.640 does appear to at least usually have been the historical consensus, 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.520 but other experts doubt this one. We should note I 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:50.880 found a paper published by the Journal of the Royal 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.280 Society of Medicine in two thousand and two by Marmion 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.960 and Wiederman, and they wrote, quote, we see no reason 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.840 to believe that Claudius was murdered. All the features are 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:04.480 consistent with sudden death from cerebro vascular disease, which was 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:08.200 common in Roman times. And they also note that one 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.640 of the forms of evidence they cite is that physical 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:14.040 depictions of Claudius in the couple of years before he 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:18.280 died show visibly declining health that would be consistent with 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:20.840 the symptoms of this disease that they think would also 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:25.120 explain what people saw when he died. So we don't 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.760 know for sure. But as a strange note, apparently Emperor 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:33.120 Nero declared that mushrooms were the food of the gods. 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:37.040 And it's also kind of interesting because Claudius was deified, 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:41.640 meaning made into a god, basically immediately after his death. Well, 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.680 I mean that does one could certainly interpret that as 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:49.520 nero being a very it being a very dastardly sneaky 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.240 thing to say, huh, or it could be a coincidence 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:54.320 because hey, I mean, mushrooms are kind of the food 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.080 of the gods. Mushrooms are delicious. We've gotten this far 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.880 into a podcast about mushrooms without me just like I 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.440 love mushrooms. I've been cooking with a lot of them 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:06.760 recently that we've been getting from a local CSA that 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:11.119 has been supplying us with shattaki mushrooms and oyster mushrooms, 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.520 which are so delicious if you just like roast them 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:16.400 lightly in the oven until they get a little bit 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.280 dried out and browned, and you can use them in anything. 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.120 They're they're like they're meatier than meat. They are certainly 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:28.120 like my family we are we're pescatarians, but we don't 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.720 even eat fish that often. So it's it's it's wonderful 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.160 to have mushrooms in a dish to create that that 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.960 that meaty texture and that meaty flavor. Yeah, so good, 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:41.160 all right, We're going to take a quick break, but 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:47.360 we'll be right back. And we're back. Now. Now we've 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:52.080 discussing these like terribly poisonous mushrooms, we should of course 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:56.240 stress that it's not just a you know, good versus 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:00.000 evil situation here. It's not just this mushroom will will 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.280 be delicious or have some sort of curative properties to it, 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:05.520 and this one will destroy you. There's a wide variety 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:09.200 of mushrooms out there, some of which if you eat 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.880 by accident, you're not going to die, You'll just get 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:17.240 violently ill. You know, there's a whole world of light 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.800 mushroom poisoning. Yes, there are certainly mushrooms out there that 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.080 are technically edible but not good to eat. And then 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.679 there's also something to be said for just everyone's particular 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.680 digestive system is going to react differently to different things. 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.399 So there, you know, the mushroom that one person finds 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:39.800 delicious and fulfilling might give someone else an upset stomach. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.200 And in a way, the idea of mushroom foraging kind 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.200 of reminds us of something that would have been much 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:49.639 more common throughout history at times before, say, I don't know, 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:54.240 having like an FDA and widespread food inspection and a 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:58.600 very organized streamline process for supplying food stuffs to grocery 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:00.720 stores and all that. I think if you go back 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.520 in history, you'd find that eating was more it was 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:05.639 a little bit more a game of roulette than it 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.439 is today. You know that, Yeah, you were kind of 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.639 you always just had to wonder, is like, is what 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.960 I'm eating right now safe? Yeah? Indeed, But particularly I 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.760 guess the thing about mushroom foraging is, especially in the 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:22.119 modern connotation, it does really highlight that that risk, that 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:26.560 inherent risk of foraging for your food and it and 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:28.600 certainly if you look at some of these worst case 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:31.959 scenarios and these horror stories of people consuming just deadly 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:37.200 poison thinking that they found an edible mushroom or psychedelic mushroom, 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.320 you know, it may raise the question why do this 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.159 at all? You know, he is the reward truly worth 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.560 the risk? And I totally get this question. When my 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:52.840 wife became interested in wild mushroom foraging, my initial thought was, Okay, 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.840 chanterelle sound delicious. I think I had had them previously, 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.159 maybe once before, But are they really so good that 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:01.960 it's worth and thinking about the possibility of getting it 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:05.160 wrong or getting it deadly wrong, you know, even casting 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.679 aside the more serious risk of death and oregan damage. 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:10.240 Do I really just want to spend say an afternoon 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.000 or an evening, you know, violently ill in my stomach 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:18.280 because I wanted to have this, this experience. I mean, 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.280 I would guess that part of it, Like you can 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.639 sort of calculate your risks. You can't be one hundred 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.080 percent sure, but you can say, like, Okay, I'm plucking 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:30.840 a mushroom that looks like this. I think it's this species. 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:36.440 How close in appearance and in habitat and stuff like that, 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:40.960 Is it two things that are known to be poisonous? Yeah, yeah, certainly, 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:43.800 Like in our case, you know, the mushrooms that we 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.520 tend to gravitate towards are ones where at least in 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.080 our area. There are only so many things you could 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.119 mistake it for. And if you you can educate yourself 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:55.840 on what details to precisely look for. And then one 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:59.840 of the beauties of social media, one of the benefits 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:02.280 I point too, is that you can then take your 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.600 photograph of this specimen and share it with other enthusiasts 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:09.440 and even experts and say, what do I have here? 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.359 Help me identify this, etc. There are a lot of 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:15.000 resources at hand. Yeah, that is kind of wonderful. And 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:17.600 in the same way that the Internet can, of course 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.280 be the source of collective delusions and things like that, 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:23.439 it can also be the source of collective wisdom. And 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.159 one of the ways in which I've seen it best 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:30.320 used for collective wisdom is species identification. There's a whole 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:34.920 part of Twitter that's just people posting species identification photos 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.520 for snakes, for spiders, for wild mushrooms and things like that. 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.040 That's awesome. Yeah. Now, now, particularly with mushrooms, I was 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:44.800 looking around for people's thoughts on this, and I found 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.280 an article on the website for Ian magazine by the 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.040 author Cal Flynn, and the author writes, this whole whole 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.680 piece is just about mushroom foraging and the risk rewards 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:56.720 of it. And they write, quote, if the risk is 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.480 so huge and the payoffs so small, why do it? 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.879 The identification process is interesting, of course, and mushrooms are 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:06.520 pleasant enough to eat, but perhaps the real intrigue arises 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:11.280 from the risk itself and the skill required to sidestep it. Yeah. 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.119 This ties in with something I've often wondered about in 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:19.639 two categories, both dogs and human children, And the question is, 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.280 why do so many dogs and human children just put 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:28.360 basically anything they find on the ground into their mouths? 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:32.480 You know, like, chances are not good that this is food, 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:34.080 but by god, I'm going to give it a go. 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:37.119 You know, this has always struck me as a as 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:42.280 a really maladaptive behavior. Why would we instinctually air on 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:45.080 putting things into the mouth instead of keeping them out 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:47.480 of the mouth. Wouldn't you think that we would instinctually 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.240 air more on the side of caution. It seems like 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:54.320 there's more risk in putting random, potentially poisonous or inedible 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.520 things into your mouth than there is reward in whatever 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:00.320 forsaken food energy you'd be missing out on if you 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.040 didn't put it in your mouth. But I don't know 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:04.959 who knows. I mean, maybe one thing is that the 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:09.440 conditions of modern life somehow encourage behaviors that wouldn't occur 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:12.760 very much in nature. I guess that's a possibility. Or 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:18.160 maybe maybe nibbling on all kinds of nutritionally ambiguous material 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:21.480 is just a lot less risky than it would seem 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:24.040 less risky than we assume. Maybe you can actually put 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:26.240 all kinds of stuff in your mouth and in your 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:28.680 body and most of the time you'll be fine. Well, 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.560 I want to stress that we are not advocating anyone 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:34.800 do this. No, no, no, no no no. But I am 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:39.040 told that experienced mushroom foragers sometimes perform a quick taste test, 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:45.400 tasting but not consuming a mushroom to help determine the variety. 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:48.639 And it's my understanding that it's it's done with potentially 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:52.040 toxic mushrooms as well. Again, do not try this because 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:56.280 we mentioned it. But but but but this, this would 0:22:56.320 --> 0:23:00.680 make sense that you would be able to just taste 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:04.920 some of these specimens to see, I don't know, to detect, 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:09.000