Speaker 1: And a little notice here at the beginning that this
Speaker 1: is an insert because Robert and I we started talking
Speaker 1: about mushroom foraging and we ended up going on for
Speaker 1: like more than two hours. So so we're splitting this
Speaker 1: episode into two parts. And and here is your warning,
Speaker 1: so be sure to not only listen to this one,
Speaker 1: but come back next time. Welcome to About to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind, production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb,
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going on the
Speaker 1: Quiet Hunt. That's right, We're gonna be talking about mushroom foraging,
Speaker 1: which we we kind of touched on very briefly in
Speaker 1: our recent episode about liking, and then I realized we
Speaker 1: just had to come back to it because I guess
Speaker 1: the basic genesis for this is that I've noticed a
Speaker 1: lot more more mushroom talk and a lot a lot
Speaker 1: more mushroom activity this year. Uh. Part of it has
Speaker 1: been social media, for sure. I've noticed, um, you know,
Speaker 1: people I know taking photographs of interesting mushrooms that they've spotted,
Speaker 1: sometimes correctly identifying them or even harvesting them. And uh,
Speaker 1: I have to admit that my own family. We've gotten
Speaker 1: into identifying mushrooms on hikes, and we've even done a
Speaker 1: little bit of foraging ourselves, but only with rati mushrooms
Speaker 1: and chanterelles. In a way, mushroom foraging is is an
Speaker 1: ideal social distancing activity, right, is something you can do
Speaker 1: that in a way feels social because you take them
Speaker 1: home and you take pictures of them, and you put
Speaker 1: them on the internet, and everybody thinks it's beautiful and
Speaker 1: they comment on them, and it's a way of interacting
Speaker 1: in a significant, productive way with the world outside your house,
Speaker 1: but you don't have to get close to anybody. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I think part of it has certainly been COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen restrictions on our lives, because some of us are
Speaker 1: doing a lot more walks through either parks or you know,
Speaker 1: or hiking trails if we have access to them and
Speaker 1: we're able to get to those. But even through our
Speaker 1: own neighborhoods, like um, we we've harvested some some racial
Speaker 1: mushrooms from just our immediate neighborhood environment just walking and
Speaker 1: walking around spotting them and then ideing them, and then
Speaker 1: also just ideing various other things that were not attempting
Speaker 1: to collect. Um. It's a great it's a great way
Speaker 1: to occupy your time to sort of how It's kind
Speaker 1: of like the Pokemon go of the wild. It gives
Speaker 1: you sort of um goals to achieve on your walks,
Speaker 1: things to chronicle, and for most of us anyway, a
Speaker 1: new topic to immerse ourselves in, you know, because prior
Speaker 1: to the last couple of years or so, I really
Speaker 1: didn't know much about mushrooms outside of like the few
Speaker 1: varieties uh that I had previously consumed, or that you
Speaker 1: can find at the grocery store or order on a pizza.
Speaker 1: But of course that's only a slim variety of of
Speaker 1: of the mushroom world. There are some delicious, edible wild
Speaker 1: mushrooms that that have resisted cultivation. Yeah, totally. And there's
Speaker 1: some interesting reasons for that too, like one of them
Speaker 1: being that tying back to our recent like an episode,
Speaker 1: some mushrooms that are delicious to eat exists in symbiotic
Speaker 1: relationships with other organisms, specifically often like plants and trees
Speaker 1: that are difficult to recreate in a controlled environment. So
Speaker 1: you can't just start a chantrelle farm, or maybe you could,
Speaker 1: but you know, You're yield would be inconsistent. It's just
Speaker 1: really difficult to do another thing, though, is It's funny
Speaker 1: that we think of mushroom foraging a sort of the
Speaker 1: the natural world version of Pokemon Go. It's it's a
Speaker 1: sign of like how sort of mikerchief tamed our brains are.
Speaker 1: That Isn't Pokemon Go really a sort of substitute or
Speaker 1: surrogate for this ancient instinct we have to scour the
Speaker 1: land for bits of edible plant matter and and other life.
Speaker 1: It absolutely is and uh and and so that's why
Speaker 1: I encourage everyone to to, you know, keep listening to
Speaker 1: this episode even if you're you're not that into mushrooms,
Speaker 1: you're not interested in mushroom foraging, because we're going to
Speaker 1: discuss mushroom foraging, but we're also going to discuss foraging
Speaker 1: behavior uh in a in a broader sense. And I
Speaker 1: think that's something that that that certainly you can e
Speaker 1: gauge in. Just so when you're on a walk and
Speaker 1: you're looking for something be it birds or mushrooms or
Speaker 1: uh non existent Pokemon lurking, you know somewhere in the
Speaker 1: GPS domain. Uh. And I think it also comes into
Speaker 1: play in shopping, in sorting through a big box of
Speaker 1: unsorted legos to find the pieces you're looking for. I mean,
Speaker 1: it pops up in so many different human activities, and
Speaker 1: it captivates us. It it is, It latches into a
Speaker 1: part of our neural hardware because it is it is
Speaker 1: part of what we're supposed to do. This is interesting.
Speaker 1: I wish I had thought about this before we started talking,
Speaker 1: so I could research it a bit, But it just
Speaker 1: occurred to me. What makes the difference between search activities
Speaker 1: that are intensely pleasurable and search activities that are maddening?
Speaker 1: Like I'm thinking about search activities such as locating a
Speaker 1: specific item within your house or a given room that
Speaker 1: is not fun, that feels awful, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: where are my keys? You just you just want it
Speaker 1: to end as soon as possible. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: of course, foraging for mushrooms, playing Pokemon Go, or even
Speaker 1: sometimes digging through a container of legos that can be
Speaker 1: very fun, or searching for a puzzle piece. So what's
Speaker 1: the difference. I mean, it might be the difference between
Speaker 1: the search for the thing lost and the search for
Speaker 1: the thing not yet obtained. Um, I'm not sure, but
Speaker 1: I also have have noticed I think I've mentioned this
Speaker 1: on the show before. I have found that jigsaw puzzles
Speaker 1: the process of looking for the correct piece. For me,
Speaker 1: I feel it's both like it's both kind of mentally
Speaker 1: exhausting and frustrating and yet at the same time completely enthralling.
Speaker 1: So I would in the past, I found myself helping
Speaker 1: to put together a jigsaw puzzle and not really like
Speaker 1: I'm asking myself, Am I enjoying this? Am I having
Speaker 1: a good time? I'm not sure, but I also cannot stop.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess one thing we're highlighting is the
Speaker 1: sometimes fuzzy line between work and play. A lot of
Speaker 1: you ever notice how much video game time is taken
Speaker 1: up with things that like are basically like they would
Speaker 1: be work in the real world, but something about the
Speaker 1: way they're framed just makes it a game instead. Yes,
Speaker 1: so many of these games, especially you know, they they
Speaker 1: want you to play regularly. It's not just play through
Speaker 1: the story, it's play every day. So they give you
Speaker 1: these little, basically grocery lists of things to do, and
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you see players complaining about it um
Speaker 1: and and rightfully so. But but also there's something kind
Speaker 1: of addictive about it, like, Okay, I need to go out.
Speaker 1: I need to you know, find and scrap eight hats
Speaker 1: in this post apocalyptic world, you know, something like that,
Speaker 1: and uh, and it you can weirdly get into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I gotta break rocks in my digital domain. And I
Speaker 1: guess that that sort of introduces the slot machine element,
Speaker 1: because if it's exciting, if there are variable, intermittent rewards,
Speaker 1: I think that's the candy in there. M yeah, I mean, well,
Speaker 1: sometimes there's like a random the reward is random, but
Speaker 1: like sometimes like in follow Out seventy six, which um
Speaker 1: which I know fans kind of go back and forth
Speaker 1: on this particular game and the way it's designed and
Speaker 1: all in the elements in it, but like a lot
Speaker 1: of the sort of grocery list assignments you have, there's
Speaker 1: not there's not really a random rewards. You know exactly
Speaker 1: what you're gonna get, Like you're gonna get so many
Speaker 1: like you know, atoms that you can spend in the
Speaker 1: store or whatever. You know exactly what you're working for
Speaker 1: with it. Um. So in that regard, I feel like
Speaker 1: it it kind of falls in line with foragre But
Speaker 1: then again foraging is also an exercise in not necessarily
Speaker 1: knowing what you're going to get or knowing what quantities
Speaker 1: you're going to get. And we'll we'll get into that.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean what if one of these digital
Speaker 1: rocks you broke could kill you? Yeah? Yeah, And that's
Speaker 1: gonna be a huge part of of mushrooms here. But
Speaker 1: but before we get in going further, I do want
Speaker 1: to just shows a couple more things. First of all, yes,
Speaker 1: photography is a tremendously fun activity, uh to engage in
Speaker 1: with mushrooms when you're scavenging them and finding them and
Speaker 1: charting them in the wild. Spore prints are also a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Now this is when you um, you
Speaker 1: can look up guides send how to do this online,
Speaker 1: but where you collect like the cap of the mushroom
Speaker 1: and then you put it on a sheet of paper
Speaker 1: and then cover it with like a glass container or
Speaker 1: a bowl or something, and then the spores leave a
Speaker 1: print of the mushroom cap on the sheet of paper,
Speaker 1: which you can then photograph and share online or even
Speaker 1: you know, I think they're ways to preserve it as well.
Speaker 1: Noting the emission of spores is a great reminder of
Speaker 1: something we've talked about before, which is that when you
Speaker 1: harvest a mushroom, you are not harvesting the entire organism
Speaker 1: that you know, the fungus is a web of things
Speaker 1: that live under the ground, usually or in some kind
Speaker 1: of decomposing matter or parasitic on another organism. The mushroom
Speaker 1: that you collect is the fruiting body that's like an
Speaker 1: organ of the overall fungus. It's almost, I mean, not
Speaker 1: exactly analogous, but the closest analogy I think would be
Speaker 1: that it's like you're breaking off the sexual organs of
Speaker 1: an animal and walking away with them. Now, now that
Speaker 1: being said, I want to stress something that mushroom foragers
Speaker 1: often UM stress regarding the fruiting body, and that is that, uh,
Speaker 1: you're not going to be hurting the organism by by
Speaker 1: harvesting the mushrooms themselves. Um. Now that being said there before,
Speaker 1: first of all, before you engage in any kind of
Speaker 1: mushroom foraging, UM, be aware that in some places it
Speaker 1: is prohibited, uh some places or maybe not gonna be
Speaker 1: hipped to this idea that you're not really hurting the organism.
Speaker 1: They're still saying, well, you're taking away from this natural
Speaker 1: environment that is protected in this space. The other huge
Speaker 1: thing we want to stress before we go any further
Speaker 1: is that while we're going to be discussing mushroom foraging
Speaker 1: for mushrooms that one would then consume for culinary or
Speaker 1: medicinal purposes, do not engage in this, you know, just
Speaker 1: based on anything we've told you here, as we are
Speaker 1: going to outline shortly, there are some risks involved there
Speaker 1: if you if you pick the wrong mushroom, Um, some
Speaker 1: dire consequences can occur and you just really need to um,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to go down that road, uh
Speaker 1: with with professionals who know what they're talking about with
Speaker 1: mushroom foraging, and you know, don't just run off into
Speaker 1: the wild. Based on listening to this episode, Yes, do
Speaker 1: not choose to put any particular thing in your mouth
Speaker 1: because of anything we say here today. Right, So speaking
Speaker 1: of this this danger factor, uh yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: stress that while while I myself have enjoyed engaging in
Speaker 1: mushroom identification and the limited foraging that that my family
Speaker 1: feels comfortable with, yet to really you know, drive the
Speaker 1: nail home here if you eat the wrong mushroom that
Speaker 1: you find in the wild you will die because you
Speaker 1: know the most Notoriously, there's a variety of mushroom known
Speaker 1: as destroying angels, and and these will indeed destroy you
Speaker 1: should you make make if you should mistake them for
Speaker 1: an edible mushroom. Um. The deadly webcap mushroom is another example.
Speaker 1: This one has been mistaken for edible chantrelle mushrooms. It's
Speaker 1: even been mistaken for psilocybin mushrooms before, and it has
Speaker 1: a horrifying reputation for causing irreversible kidney failure in those
Speaker 1: who consume it, including some very notable cases such as
Speaker 1: that of English author Nicholas Evans. Yeah, they're actually a
Speaker 1: number of historically notable alleged mushroom poisonings that I've been
Speaker 1: reading about, specifically in a book by Cynthia D. Burtlesson
Speaker 1: called Mushroom, a Global History from Reaction Books in I
Speaker 1: think it was also distributed by the University of Chicago Press,
Speaker 1: but Burtlesson at one point writes about how the French
Speaker 1: philosopher Voltaire, who lives sixteen nine to seventeen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: once wrote, quote, a dish of mushrooms changed the destiny
Speaker 1: of Europe. How how could that possibly be true? Well,
Speaker 1: he was talking about the poisoning of a specific king
Speaker 1: of the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg King, Charles the
Speaker 1: sixth of Austria. UH to pick up with what Bertelson writes,
Speaker 1: quote who ate deathcap mushrooms, Amanita Fellow itties the subsequent
Speaker 1: War of the Austrian Succession from seventeen forty to seventeen
Speaker 1: forty eight, which developed into a global war in the
Speaker 1: American colonies, it was called King George's War, absorbing in
Speaker 1: the process the War of jenkins Ear between the British
Speaker 1: and Spanish and the Caribbean, affected people as far away
Speaker 1: as India, all because of mushrooms. Those quote toad stools,
Speaker 1: And here she's referring to the fact that it was
Speaker 1: allegedly common among especially English speakers, to to take a
Speaker 1: very indiscriminating attitude toward mushrooms. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: English Speakers would just look at all kinds of mushrooms
Speaker 1: and say, well, they're all just toad stools. In terms
Speaker 1: of other political consequences in history, it's also been alleged
Speaker 1: that the Roman Emperor Claudius was poisoned with mushrooms though
Speaker 1: this is disputed. The earliest accounts indicate that on October,
Speaker 1: at the age of sixty four, the emperor started to
Speaker 1: complain of extreme stomach pain. He had diarrhea and vomiting.
Speaker 1: He had trouble breathing, low blood pressure, and excessive salivation.
Speaker 1: And I was reading a report in Scientific American from
Speaker 1: two thousand and one about a conference presentation by a
Speaker 1: doctor named William Valente from the University of Maryland School
Speaker 1: of Medicine, and Valente argued that mushrooms containing muscarine were
Speaker 1: the cause of his death, according to the symptoms reported.
Speaker 1: And one of the traditional explanations for what happened to
Speaker 1: Claudius was that he was poisoned by his wife Agrippina
Speaker 1: in order to clear the way for her son Nero
Speaker 1: to ascend to the throne. And we all know good
Speaker 1: old Nero. Now, the conclusion that that Claudius died by
Speaker 1: some form of poisoning does appear to at least usually
Speaker 1: have been the historical consensus, but other experts doubt this one.
Speaker 1: We should note I found a paper published by the
Speaker 1: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine in two thousand
Speaker 1: two by Marmion and Widerman, and they wrote, quote, we
Speaker 1: see no reason to believe that Claudius was murdered. All
Speaker 1: the features are consistent with sudden death from cerebral vascular disease,
Speaker 1: which was common in Roman times. And they also note that, uh.
Speaker 1: One of the forms of evidence they cite is that
Speaker 1: physical depictions of Claudius in the couple of years before
Speaker 1: he died show visibly declining health. That would be, you know,
Speaker 1: consistent with the symptoms of this disease that they think
Speaker 1: would also explain what people saw when he died. Um. So,
Speaker 1: so we don't know for sure, but as a strange note,
Speaker 1: apparently Emperor Nero declared that mushrooms were the food of
Speaker 1: the gods. And it's also kind of interesting because Claudius
Speaker 1: was deified, meaning made into a god, basically immediately after
Speaker 1: his death. Well, I mean that does one could certainly
Speaker 1: interpret that is Nero being a very it being a
Speaker 1: very dastardly sneaky thing to say, huh, or it could
Speaker 1: be a coincidence because hey, I mean, mushrooms are kind
Speaker 1: of the food of the gods. Mushrooms are delicious. We've
Speaker 1: gotten this far into a podcast about mushrooms without me
Speaker 1: just saying, like, I love mushrooms. I've been cooking with
Speaker 1: a lot of them recently that we've been getting from
Speaker 1: a local CSA that has been supplying us with with
Speaker 1: chottaki mushrooms and oyster mushrooms, which are so delicious if
Speaker 1: you just like roast them lightly in the oven until
Speaker 1: they get a little bit dried out and browned, and
Speaker 1: you can use them in anything. They're they're like they're
Speaker 1: meatier than meat. They are certainly like my family we are,
Speaker 1: uh we're pesketarians, but we don't even eat fish that often.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's wonderful to to have mushrooms in
Speaker 1: a dish to create that that that neaty texture and
Speaker 1: that meaty flavor. Yeah, so good. All right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we'll be right back now.
Speaker 1: Now we've been discussing these like terribly poisonous mushrooms, we
Speaker 1: should of course stress that it's not just uh, you know,
Speaker 1: good versus evil situation here. It's not just this mushroom
Speaker 1: will will be delicious or have some sort of curative
Speaker 1: properties to it and this one will destroy you. There's
Speaker 1: a wide variety of mushrooms out there. Some of which, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you eat by accident, you're not going to die,
Speaker 1: You'll just get violently ill. You know. Um, there's a
Speaker 1: whole world of light mushroom poisoning. Yes, there are certainly
Speaker 1: mushrooms out there that are technically edible but not good
Speaker 1: to eat. Uh. And and then there there's also something
Speaker 1: to be said for just everyone's particular um digestive system
Speaker 1: is going to react differently to different things. So there,
Speaker 1: you know, the mushroom that one person finds delicious and
Speaker 1: fulfilling might give someone else an upset stomach. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And in a way, the idea of mushroom foraging of
Speaker 1: reminds us of something that would have been much more
Speaker 1: common throughout history at times before, say I don't know,
Speaker 1: having like an f d A and widespread food inspection
Speaker 1: and a very organized streamline process for supplying food stuffs
Speaker 1: to grocery stores and all that. I think if you
Speaker 1: go back in history, you'd find that eating was more
Speaker 1: it was a little bit more a game of roulette
Speaker 1: than it is today. You know that you were kind
Speaker 1: of you always just had to wonder, is like, is
Speaker 1: what I'm eating right now safe? Yeah? Indeed, but particularly
Speaker 1: I guess. The thing about mushroom foraging is, especially in
Speaker 1: the modern connotation, it does uh really highlight that that risk,
Speaker 1: that inherent risk of of foraging for your food and
Speaker 1: it And certainly if if you look at some of
Speaker 1: these worst case scenarios and these horror stories of people
Speaker 1: consuming just deadly poison, uh thinking that they found an
Speaker 1: edible mushroom or psychedelic mushroom. Um, you know it, it
Speaker 1: may raise the question why do this at all? You
Speaker 1: know we is the reward truly worth the risk? And
Speaker 1: I totally get this question. You know, when when my
Speaker 1: wife became interested in wild mushroom foraging, my initial thought was, Okay,
Speaker 1: chantrelle sound delicious. I think I I had had them previously,
Speaker 1: maybe once before. But are they really so good that
Speaker 1: it's worth even thinking about the possibility of getting it
Speaker 1: wrong or getting it deadly wrong? You know, even casting
Speaker 1: aside the more serious risk of death and oregon damage.
Speaker 1: Do I really just want to spend say an afternoon
Speaker 1: or an evening, uh, you know, violently ill in my
Speaker 1: stomach because I wanted to have this, this experience. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would guess that part of it, like you can
Speaker 1: sort of calculate your risks. You can't be a percent sure,
Speaker 1: but you can say, like, Okay, I'm plucking a mushroom
Speaker 1: that looks like this. I think it's this species. How
Speaker 1: close in appearance and in habitat and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: Is it two things that are known to be poisonous? Yeah, yeah, certainly,
Speaker 1: Like in our case, you know that the mushrooms that
Speaker 1: we tend to gravitate towards our ones, where at least
Speaker 1: in our area. There there are only so many things
Speaker 1: you could mistake it for. And if you you can
Speaker 1: educate yourself on what details to precisely look for. And
Speaker 1: then one of the beauties of social media, well, one
Speaker 1: of the benefits I can point to is that you
Speaker 1: can then take your photograph of this specimen and share
Speaker 1: it with other enthusiasts and even experts and say, what
Speaker 1: do I have here? Help me identify this, etcetera. Like
Speaker 1: there are a lot of resources at hand. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is kind of wonderful. And in the same way that
Speaker 1: the Internet can, of course be the source of of
Speaker 1: collective delusions and things like that, it can also be
Speaker 1: the source of collective wisdom. And one of the ways
Speaker 1: in which I've seen it best used for collective wisdom
Speaker 1: is species identification. There's a whole part of Twitter that's
Speaker 1: just people posting species identification photos for snakes, for spiders,
Speaker 1: for wild mushrooms and things like that. That's awesome. Yeah, now,
Speaker 1: and now, particularly with mushrooms. I was looking around for
Speaker 1: for people's thoughts on this, and I found an article
Speaker 1: on the website for Ian Magazine by the author Cal Flynn,
Speaker 1: and the author writes this, this whole whole piece is
Speaker 1: just about mushroom foraging and the risk rewards of it.
Speaker 1: And they write, quote, if the risk is so huge
Speaker 1: and the payoffs so small, why do it? The identification
Speaker 1: process is interesting, of course, and mushrooms are pleasant enough
Speaker 1: to eat, but perhaps the real intrigue arises from the
Speaker 1: risk itself and the skill required decide step it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This ties in with something I've often wondered about in
Speaker 1: in two categories, both dogs and human children. And the
Speaker 1: question is why do so many dogs and human children
Speaker 1: just put basically anything they find on the ground into
Speaker 1: their mouths, you know, like, uh, chances are not good
Speaker 1: that this is food, but by god, I'm going to
Speaker 1: give it a go. You know, this has always struck
Speaker 1: me as a as a really maladaptive behavior. Why would
Speaker 1: we instinctually air on putting things into the mouth instead
Speaker 1: of keeping them out of the mouth. Wouldn't you think
Speaker 1: that we would instinctually air more on the side of caution.
Speaker 1: It seems like there's more risk in putting random, potentially
Speaker 1: poisonous or inedible things into your mouth than there is
Speaker 1: reward in whatever forsaken food energy you'd be missing out
Speaker 1: on if you didn't put it in your mouth. But
Speaker 1: I don't know who knows. I mean, maybe one thing
Speaker 1: is that the conditions of modern life somehow encouraged behaviors
Speaker 1: that wouldn't occur very much in nature. I guess that's
Speaker 1: a possibility. Or maybe maybe nibbling on all kinds of
Speaker 1: nutritionally ambiguous material is just a lot less risky than
Speaker 1: it would seem, maybe less risky than we assume. Maybe
Speaker 1: you can actually put all kinds of stuff in your
Speaker 1: mouth and in your body and most of the time
Speaker 1: you'll be fine. Well. I want to stress that we
Speaker 1: are not advocating anyone do this. No, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: But I am told that experienced mushroom foragers sometimes perform
Speaker 1: a quick taste test, tasting but not consuming a mushroom
Speaker 1: to help determine the variety. And it's my understanding that
Speaker 1: it's it's done with potentially toxic mushrooms as well. Again,
Speaker 1: do not try this because we mentioned it. But but
Speaker 1: but but this this would make sense, um that that
Speaker 1: you would be able to um to to just taste
Speaker 1: some of these, uh these specimens, uh to see, I
Speaker 1: don't know, to detect say a bitterness, uh, to help
Speaker 1: in the identification process. I was also thinking about, Okay,
Speaker 1: what has actually been observed in wild animals in terms
Speaker 1: of just like tasting everything, trying everything in their environment
Speaker 1: when there are so many toxic plants and mushrooms in
Speaker 1: the world. And one thing I came across that was
Speaker 1: kind of interesting was an older article in the Alaska
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife News by Riley Woodford called How Deer
Speaker 1: Eat Poisonous Plants, and it sites an Alaska wildlife biologist
Speaker 1: named Tom Hanley who talks about how actually in the wild,
Speaker 1: deer eat toxic poisonous plants just all the time. And
Speaker 1: Hanley says, quote, deer will eat a little bit of
Speaker 1: almost everything out there, including a few bites of various
Speaker 1: toxic plants. There seem to be threshold levels for the
Speaker 1: toxicity of different plants, and as long as deer eat
Speaker 1: below the threshold, they're okay. So that's interesting. It's like,
Speaker 1: maybe you just eat toxic things in moderation, nibble on
Speaker 1: a little bit of this here and a little bit
Speaker 1: of that there, and over time you can sort of
Speaker 1: build up some nutrition for your body without reaching toxic
Speaker 1: levels on any one particular poison. Yeah. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: also worth worth remembering that you know it's going to
Speaker 1: vary from species to species. For instance, with humans, poison
Speaker 1: ivy is generally no fun, but goats goats are like,
Speaker 1: let me add it, I'm just gonna eat it all.
Speaker 1: Goats eat poison ivy. Yeah, yeah, goats will eat it up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now that that means you need to not have goat
Speaker 1: milk from those goats, but yeah, goats goats have no
Speaker 1: problem with it. Another outstanding a example of this sort
Speaker 1: of thing are box turtles. Um. Box turtles are all
Speaker 1: about eating up some some some poisonous mushrooms, for example, um,
Speaker 1: and you know it doesn't doesn't bother bother them at all.
Speaker 1: But for a similar reason, don't go out harvest in
Speaker 1: box turtles think thinking you're gonna make soup out of them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and the fact that different species are tolerant of
Speaker 1: different toxins is of course something that's mentioned in this
Speaker 1: article as well. Like it talks about how mule deer,
Speaker 1: for example, are more tolerant of something called local weed
Speaker 1: than pronghorn antelopear. And it says that elk or more
Speaker 1: tolerant of ponderosa pine than bison are. And I think
Speaker 1: this would probably have to do with what their natural
Speaker 1: habitats are, what the evolved relationships they have are with
Speaker 1: different plants, and and and probably also their nutritional needs.
Speaker 1: But there was a quote that Burtleson has in her
Speaker 1: book that I really liked. It was from the American
Speaker 1: food writer John Thorne, who wrote, quote, all hunters put
Speaker 1: life at risk, but for mushroomers, the amount of danger
Speaker 1: comes well after the quarry has been run to ground finding.
Speaker 1: The mushroom is the initiation, but eating it is the test.
Speaker 1: I think that's interesting comparing it with hunting like that,
Speaker 1: you know, hunting is a dislocation of where the violence
Speaker 1: could set in. And uh, and this connects to some
Speaker 1: Russian traditions that I'll talk about in a minute. But
Speaker 1: there's also a folk adage. I think we may have
Speaker 1: mentioned it when we did our episodes about psilocybin and psychedelics.
Speaker 1: But the folks saying is there are old mushroom hunters,
Speaker 1: and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no
Speaker 1: old bold mushroom hunters, which hammering home the idea that
Speaker 1: mushroom foraging, while a highly rewarding activity to millions people
Speaker 1: around the world, is something that's best practiced with a
Speaker 1: kind of conservative mindset. Like you, you do need to
Speaker 1: be cautious to to understand what you're doing before you
Speaker 1: dive in head first. Yeah, I think I've heard paulse
Speaker 1: aim it's um echo this this same nugget of wisdom
Speaker 1: and speaking of of of of wisdom concerning that, you know,
Speaker 1: the consumption of of mushrooms and also plants. This brings
Speaker 1: to mind this mythological figure from Chinese mythology that have
Speaker 1: brought up before, and that's Uh Shinong, the Divine farmer. Um.
Speaker 1: It's also that the Chinese father of agriculture, and Uh
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's credited with inventing various important agricultural technologies,
Speaker 1: but also was said to have consumed. Basically that the
Speaker 1: myth is he looked around and he saw that the
Speaker 1: people were starving. They were they were sickly. Uh, they
Speaker 1: needed medicine, they needed more food. So what he did
Speaker 1: is he's set to work, consuming hundreds of plants per
Speaker 1: day and as many as seventy poisons a day in
Speaker 1: order to chart the medicinal properties of the natural world
Speaker 1: in order to alleviate sickness and starvation and disease um.
Speaker 1: And you'll often find illustrations of him kind of like
Speaker 1: chewinging on the end of some sort of vegetation. And
Speaker 1: he's a really interesting character in the artistic depictions as well,
Speaker 1: because he he has these kind of bovine features and
Speaker 1: even uh, these kind of horn like protusions on his head,
Speaker 1: which apparently we see in some other Chinese mythological figures
Speaker 1: as well. Well. This is great because even though there
Speaker 1: may be there could be mythological elements to the specific
Speaker 1: story of Shinng, it highlights the fact that at some
Speaker 1: point there had to be a lot of trial and
Speaker 1: error going into our knowledge about mushrooms. Right, you couldn't
Speaker 1: just like look at him and reason from that knowledge
Speaker 1: and like people were making decisions about what mushrooms were
Speaker 1: safe to eat, long before we had laboratory testing procedures
Speaker 1: and all that. So there there are just years and
Speaker 1: years and and many historical recapitulations of painful, horrifying trial
Speaker 1: and error in mushroom foraging. In fact, Bertleson writes about this.
Speaker 1: She talks about specifically what was going on in the
Speaker 1: literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. In the medical literature,
Speaker 1: she says quoted, is full of accounts of unsuspecting foragers
Speaker 1: coming home with their prizes only to find themselves hours
Speaker 1: or even minutes later, laughing hysterically or bent over with
Speaker 1: intestinal pains, unable to move from chair to bed. So
Speaker 1: serious were cases of poisonings in France that in Paaris
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty four, the city fathers passed an ordinance
Speaker 1: prohibiting the sale of any mushrooms in the markets. So like,
Speaker 1: there's so much mushroom poisoning. People just trying to like
Speaker 1: figure out what you're supposed to eat and not or
Speaker 1: or maybe disregarding what was already known by other people.
Speaker 1: Uh that they were they were they were just like okay,
Speaker 1: we're saying nix on the mushrooms. No mushrooms at all.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, indeed in need what was known and perhaps forgotten.
Speaker 1: Um uh yeah. It's it's interesting too to think of,
Speaker 1: like just the very early days of humanity. As the
Speaker 1: human expansion spreads out of our our you know, our
Speaker 1: ancient places of origin, the human these humans and uh
Speaker 1: and and and pre humans would have encountered just new
Speaker 1: environments that means new species, new substances that they would
Speaker 1: then have to test out and figure out again like
Speaker 1: what is what is beneficial, what is dangerous? You know,
Speaker 1: what is food? And what is the potential medicine as
Speaker 1: they continue to spread out in the world. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think this is something you see throughout the history
Speaker 1: of mushroom literature is a gradual process of ruling things
Speaker 1: in So in the in the eighteenth century French example,
Speaker 1: I mentioned in seventeen fifty four they said, okay, no
Speaker 1: mushrooms at all in the markets, but you know, mushrooms
Speaker 1: are good. So this was eventually amended. And Burtleson mentions
Speaker 1: that in eighteen o eight they changed the law to
Speaker 1: allow seven species, in particular in markets in Paris, and
Speaker 1: the mushrooms had to pass inspection by police appointed experts
Speaker 1: in order to be sold. Now, that would make for
Speaker 1: a good historical television show, The Mushroom Police. All right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Thank thank alright, we're back. You know, there's something I've
Speaker 1: sometimes gonna wondered about when people really enjoy meat, you know,
Speaker 1: people who are big carnivores like I just love a
Speaker 1: good steak, if part of the enjoyment is a sort
Speaker 1: of sublimated, implied sense of violence or struggle in the
Speaker 1: idea of eating the meat, because you know, if you're
Speaker 1: eating meat, there was some violence that happened at some point.
Speaker 1: Something is a little bit dangerous about your food. And
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder if maybe in the back of
Speaker 1: our minds there's something slightly psychologically similar going on with mushrooms.
Speaker 1: I mean, probably not, because not if you're buying button
Speaker 1: mushrooms from the store or something. I mean, that's just
Speaker 1: like any other crop at this point. But maybe with
Speaker 1: foraged mushrooms there there's a similar danger running underneath the skin.
Speaker 1: Oh maybe so yeah, yeah. Um. Now to come back
Speaker 1: to to cal Flynn's piece and Ian the author, they're
Speaker 1: also compared it to the can ssumption of a particular
Speaker 1: meat uh, the Japanese delicacy of fugu um, you know,
Speaker 1: in which the risk and the skill is part of it.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like, is the uh is the is
Speaker 1: the chef in this case? Are they skilled enough to
Speaker 1: pull this off, to remove the dangerous parts and serve
Speaker 1: only the delicious parts? Uh? And so so that author
Speaker 1: ties this into the uh to to our relationship with
Speaker 1: mushroom foraging. Now, now to come back just briefly to
Speaker 1: just the idea of there there seeming to be an
Speaker 1: uptick in mushroom enthusiasm um, you know, especially what we
Speaker 1: see online and all. I just wanted to share a
Speaker 1: few more thoughts about it. First of all, I do
Speaker 1: think there is probably a connection here to the increased
Speaker 1: mainstream interest in psychedelic mushrooms and the increased and promising
Speaker 1: clinical research which we we outlined what was it last
Speaker 1: year in a several parts series on psychedelics. UM. I
Speaker 1: feel like that, I feel I feel like that is
Speaker 1: part of the scenario, at least with some people. UM. Also,
Speaker 1: we should always drive home that humans have always been
Speaker 1: fascinated with mushrooms. UH. So there's nothing new about mushroom fascination.
Speaker 1: We see it in ancient art, we see it in
Speaker 1: Super Mario games. So it's it's it's just part of
Speaker 1: who we are. And if you want to read more
Speaker 1: about this last point, it was touched on in a
Speaker 1: New York magazine article by Sydney Gore with the wonderful
Speaker 1: title why are mushrooms taking over my social media feed,
Speaker 1: my medicine cabinet and my closet, referring to like fashions
Speaker 1: I believe there, Oh, like those fungus hats, you know,
Speaker 1: like Paul Oh, yes, yes, Paul statements fashions. Um. I
Speaker 1: also found an interesting article about a huge uptick in
Speaker 1: Scottish mushroom foraging uh steep rise in Scott's Enjoying Fruits
Speaker 1: of Foraging by Maggie Ritchie and this article put it
Speaker 1: this way, quoting Terry Carmichael, resident forager for Wild Tastes
Speaker 1: at the Carmichael Estate and uh in Lancashire uh quote
Speaker 1: more people were trying to get back to their roots
Speaker 1: and to nature since the pandemic started, and we reconnect
Speaker 1: with nature. There are so many foods that are right
Speaker 1: on our doorstep that we see every day and can
Speaker 1: bring into our kitchens. They're all packed with nutrients far
Speaker 1: more than any sold in supermarkets. And it's also worth
Speaker 1: noting UM that articles speak. You find articles speaking to
Speaker 1: the rising quote hipness of mushroom foraging in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: and earlier, so a lot of this was already in motion. UM.
Speaker 1: For instance, there was the Guardian article titled the Gospel
Speaker 1: of Mushrooms, How foraging became Hip and that was from
Speaker 1: October of twenty nineteen. Uh. And for my own part,
Speaker 1: I have to point out that my family took a
Speaker 1: guided foraging exercise, UM, like a guided hike through an
Speaker 1: area where they were known to be sementable mushrooms in
Speaker 1: earlier in two thousand nineteen, I think summer of two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen as well. Uh. There's apparently been just overall
Speaker 1: kind of a demographic shift on top of this, where
Speaker 1: mushroom foraging was previously the kind of hobby that you
Speaker 1: would often see older individuals engaged in, and that has
Speaker 1: shifted a bit younger in UM in recent years. So
Speaker 1: part of this goes back to pre pandemic times, to
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen and these trends, but I definitely also to
Speaker 1: come back to what you were saying before that would
Speaker 1: connect it to trends we've seen in uh self sufficiency
Speaker 1: and production of food stuffs in the home or around
Speaker 1: the home. Uh the same way there was sort of
Speaker 1: a craze for like people making sour dough bread, people
Speaker 1: growing herb gardens and things like that. This year when
Speaker 1: I think, I think suddenly a lot of people realize
Speaker 1: that it might be much easier than they had previously
Speaker 1: thought to acquire food items from places other than the
Speaker 1: grocery store. Yeah. Yeah, I also want to mention that, um,
Speaker 1: that that foraging course that my family took, that high
Speaker 1: guided hike. UM, it was kind of a varied group.
Speaker 1: You know. You had some people who are just kind
Speaker 1: of nature enthusiasts, but then there's one guy who was
Speaker 1: like straight up survivalist like he was, you know, he
Speaker 1: was there to to learn. I mean, he was there
Speaker 1: I think for a little socialization as well, you know,
Speaker 1: but he was also one of these guys that was like, Yep,
Speaker 1: it's coming and I'm gonna I'm gonna be the one
Speaker 1: that know the mushrooms are when the Y two K
Speaker 1: bug hits, I'm gonna be here with my gun mushroom hunting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think we can all relate late to that.
Speaker 1: You know, we do a little um uh, you know,
Speaker 1: doom fantasizing and we're like, oh man, if it's suddenly
Speaker 1: Corny McCarthy's The Road, I want to know what's up,
Speaker 1: you know, um, especially as we previously mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: fun guys are gonna gonna presumably do do all right
Speaker 1: if the sun gets blocked out, right, This is a
Speaker 1: great point. I didn't think about this. So the in
Speaker 1: in Coral McCarthy's The Road, the earth is kind of dead.
Speaker 1: The sky appears to have been, I don't know, clouded
Speaker 1: by some kind of particulate matter. Did you ever have
Speaker 1: a personal theory as to what the event was in
Speaker 1: the Road, was a volcanic eruptions or an impact from
Speaker 1: space or um? I always lean more towards nuclear war
Speaker 1: just because they have those. He had those really, um.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole book is beautiful and dark, and
Speaker 1: so has those richly, but has these deposits of just
Speaker 1: exceedingly rich language. And there are a few they're describing,
Speaker 1: like what it's like in the cities, where like the
Speaker 1: city seemed to be a very toxic place, to be,
Speaker 1: and he talks about like people rummaging through the rubble
Speaker 1: to get uh you know, probably radioactive foods that they
Speaker 1: can eat, that sort of thing. So I kind of
Speaker 1: I would tend to lean towards that, but he does
Speaker 1: keep it vague as to what exactly happened. Right Well,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, something has has darkened the skies and
Speaker 1: this of course has killed all the plant life, so
Speaker 1: nobody can grow any food to eat. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: would be thinking, you shouldn't mushrooms be doing awesome? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no. I don't think there's any mention of them
Speaker 1: growing anywhere, but one would hope. So it would be
Speaker 1: it would be almost kind of a comical scene right
Speaker 1: where the cannibals are hanging out and they're like, whoa, guys,
Speaker 1: there are mushrooms everywhere. We shouldn't have to eat babies anymore?
Speaker 1: Is Sean trell season? Yeah? Hand of the woods? So anyway,
Speaker 1: Um so, so there's the survival aspect of it, certainly,
Speaker 1: but uh, you know, there's just fascination with nature. But
Speaker 1: I would say that another huge part of this, and
Speaker 1: something we're gonna continue to discuss here, is that foraging
Speaker 1: would seem to be an innate part of the human experience,
Speaker 1: and we engage in it in various ways. Mushroom hunting
Speaker 1: stands out as a as a thoroughly authentic example of
Speaker 1: this sort of foraging behavior. But again, we can we
Speaker 1: can all identify with activities that are like foraging that
Speaker 1: are oddly satisfying. Again, like jigsaw puzzles, lego pieces, shopping,
Speaker 1: even going to the grocery store can be an an
Speaker 1: act of foraging. It can sort of engage some of
Speaker 1: those same circuits. I feel like it certainly varies from
Speaker 1: person to person. For example, I've been fascinated by the
Speaker 1: way that some people really enjoy shopping, you know, they
Speaker 1: enjoy like shopping for clothes or whatever. And that's always
Speaker 1: been very mysterious to me. I don't enjoy that at all.
Speaker 1: It seems like a really irritating, tedious activity that I
Speaker 1: don't do unless I absolutely have to. But then I realized,
Speaker 1: actually I can relate to it, because I really enjoy
Speaker 1: under under at least like less stressful circumstances. I really
Speaker 1: enjoy shopping for food. I like going out to find
Speaker 1: like nice produce, you know, going to the farmers markets,
Speaker 1: you know, finding a really good looking cucumber or a
Speaker 1: bunch of mushrooms or something. So so I think I
Speaker 1: do actually relate to that foraging shopping instinct. It's just
Speaker 1: with different kinds of items, and I guess that probably
Speaker 1: works out differently from for different people. I know some
Speaker 1: people who love going to the hardware store. I don't
Speaker 1: really get that either. But you know that's like a
Speaker 1: very classically like dad thing is like, oh yeah, the
Speaker 1: hardware store. Well, I know you and I back when
Speaker 1: we could actually physically go in there, going to uh
Speaker 1: the last video store in Atlanta, video Drome there, and
Speaker 1: Forage for particular. Uh, you know, movies were interested in
Speaker 1: saying like that. That is uh, is I think very
Speaker 1: comparable to foraging? Very interesting? Why Yeah, So I love
Speaker 1: the video drome and and the produce sile, but I
Speaker 1: do not love the hardware store or the clothes aisle.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe it comes back to again this idea,
Speaker 1: is there a reward? Is there something that I'm working
Speaker 1: towards getting that is meaningful to me sustenance either in
Speaker 1: a food sense or in a B movie sense. But
Speaker 1: clearly for many people there is a lot of pleasure
Speaker 1: in mushroom foraging that is not related to the reward.
Speaker 1: It is related to the activity itself. And this is
Speaker 1: something that kept coming up for me when I was
Speaker 1: reading about the Russian traditions of mushroom foraging. This is
Speaker 1: what I referenced at the beginning of the episode. But
Speaker 1: the term the quiet hunt, apparently, you know, mushroom foraging
Speaker 1: is very popular in Russia, and it's often been called
Speaker 1: this the quiet hunt. I like that Bertelson mentions this
Speaker 1: tradition in her book when she's quoting a passage from
Speaker 1: Vladimir Nabakov's memoir Speak Memory, which he published in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty one, and in this book he writes about his
Speaker 1: own mother's obsession with mushroom foraging. Quote. One of her
Speaker 1: greatest pleasures in summer was the very Russian sport of
Speaker 1: Hodi Greeby looking for mushrooms fried in butter and thickened
Speaker 1: with sour cream. Her delicious fines appeared regularly on the
Speaker 1: dinner table. Not that the gustatory moment mattered much. Her
Speaker 1: main delight was in the quest. Burtleson also quotes the
Speaker 1: Russian American pediatrician Valentina Pavlovna Wasson, who of course was
Speaker 1: married to the famed microphile our Gordon Wasson. There were
Speaker 1: sort of a a amateur mushroom expert team in in
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen hundreds. I think that they were also
Speaker 1: heavily involved in UH spreading the word about psilocybin mushrooms
Speaker 1: to the world. But speaking of her childhood, you know
Speaker 1: she came from a Russian family. Valentina Pavlovna wrote that quote,
Speaker 1: when we were naughty, our mother would punish us by
Speaker 1: forbidding us to go mushrooming. Great. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: it's like a video game. And Burtleson in her chapter,
Speaker 1: identifies a couple of possible factors influencing the widespread passion
Speaker 1: for mushroom foraging in Russia. One of them that she
Speaker 1: highlights is the number of fast days mandated under the
Speaker 1: Russian Orthodox Church, which would specifically UH. It would imply
Speaker 1: that Christians were expected not to eat meat on these days,
Speaker 1: and mushrooms would provide a luxurious meeting nous to a
Speaker 1: plate that you know, when you can't eat meat itself.
Speaker 1: But also just general poverty leading to that same lack
Speaker 1: of meat. But there's also a thing that appears to
Speaker 1: go beyond culinary preferences. I was reading an article by
Speaker 1: Ellen Barry in The New York Times for the Moscow
Speaker 1: Journal called a hypnotizing hunt leaves Russians bewildered. This is
Speaker 1: from two thousand nine, and Barry writes that practitioners of
Speaker 1: the quiet hunt quote routinely becomes so hypnotized that they
Speaker 1: get hopelessly lost. Yeah, apparently Russian media is full of
Speaker 1: stories like this. She cites a couple. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: going to read from her article here quote. Earlier this month,
Speaker 1: a sodden and unshaven man emerged from the woods near
Speaker 1: the southern Russian village of Gorriachi, telling rescuers that he
Speaker 1: spent three nights perched in trees to get away from jackals.
Speaker 1: A similar tale came from the Tiger near Bratsk in Siberia,
Speaker 1: where a twenty two year old man wandered for five days,
Speaker 1: covering himself with pine boughs at night to ward off
Speaker 1: frost bite. Eleven time zones to the west, near the
Speaker 1: Baltic Sea, a search and rescue team found an elderly
Speaker 1: couple in a swamp where they had spent the night
Speaker 1: The wife in what officials described as a state of panic.
Speaker 1: It happens every mushroom season, and so yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 1: Berry writes that for a lot of mushroom hunters in Russia,
Speaker 1: the foraging activity induces a kind of trance state. I
Speaker 1: don't know how literally to take that, but that's what
Speaker 1: she says, and it does seem to be consistent with
Speaker 1: what a lot of people have written about the Quiet Hunt.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that there there's a kind of disconnect because,
Speaker 1: of course, ancient mushroom foraging practices would have been established
Speaker 1: by people who were probably better at navigating the wild
Speaker 1: landscape and finding their way home following the angle of
Speaker 1: the sun, for instance, while in modern times we have
Speaker 1: lost a lot of these wayfinding skills because we don't
Speaker 1: need them very often, and instead we rely on technology,
Speaker 1: which is not always reliable. So autumn comes and people
Speaker 1: go in, they go to the woods, they trance up,
Speaker 1: and they get lost. And the article quotes a rescue
Speaker 1: worker named alexander's Manovski who calls the people who get
Speaker 1: lost quote the children of asphalt. Now, of course, with
Speaker 1: stories like this, you also just have to, you know,
Speaker 1: wonder with some of these stories people might just be
Speaker 1: doing other things and then later they say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got lost while mushroom foraging. There are some there
Speaker 1: are allegations in the article of some people's particular stories
Speaker 1: where people are like, well, they were just on a
Speaker 1: bender or something. But but clearly it does seem to
Speaker 1: happen fairly often. Well, I mean, one is of course
Speaker 1: reminded of the fact that if you go on a
Speaker 1: nature walk, uh, you you you, you, you may get
Speaker 1: lucky and find some from Chanterelle's or whatnot growing close
Speaker 1: to the trail, but in all likelihood you're gonna you're
Speaker 1: gonna spot that that tell tale yellow patch a little
Speaker 1: further off from the trail, and then you you may
Speaker 1: wander off the trail to go and get them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And of course leaving the trail can is one way
Speaker 1: to get a little closer to becoming lost in the forest. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean this is how isn't there there's a part
Speaker 1: in the Hobbit I think where basically the same thing happens,
Speaker 1: except the ferries camp fire, which of course has parallels
Speaker 1: to patches of mushrooms in the wood well and it
Speaker 1: specifically highlights things about forging strategies that we observe in
Speaker 1: humans and in other animals about say, the density of
Speaker 1: rewards in certain areas, like probably the closer you stay
Speaker 1: to the occupied area, the more picked over the stores
Speaker 1: are gonna be. So you might need to make a
Speaker 1: little bit of a journey to go to place is
Speaker 1: that haven't been picked over by other people already. And
Speaker 1: the farther you get away, the more the risks multiply,
Speaker 1: the more energy you expend. Yeah, and then then the
Speaker 1: next thing you know, you've got the head of a bear.
Speaker 1: So the little mushroom man, it's it's transformed you. All right,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to interrupt the conversation right there again.
Speaker 1: We had to split this conversation into two episodes. Uh
Speaker 1: So expect the second half on the next publication day
Speaker 1: for stuff to blow your mind. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: feel free to write in we'd love to hear from
Speaker 1: everybody on the topic of mushroom foraging, your experiences with
Speaker 1: mushroom foraging, etcetera. I should also point out that if
Speaker 1: you if you're interested in merchandise for the show, we
Speaker 1: actually have a mushroom theme Stuff to blow your mind
Speaker 1: logo T shirt it's kind of black light themed. If
Speaker 1: you go to UM I think if you go to
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, it'll still refer
Speaker 1: you to this I heart listing for our show. And
Speaker 1: there should be a store UM selection that you can
Speaker 1: you can click on store and it will take you
Speaker 1: to that store. So if you're interested in that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, uh, that's where you'll find it. Huge things.
Speaker 1: As always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest
Speaker 1: topic for the future, just to say hello, you can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
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