FUNGI IN RELATION TO MAN

Abstract

FUNGI AS FOODMOST people in Great Britain would classify the numerous fungi of our woods and fields into two groups, the first including one species, the mushroom (Psalliota campestris) which is edible, the other including the rest which are called toadstools and are labelled poisonous. Those who have eaten abroad with a true spirit of gastronomic adventure know that certain toadstools make an attractive dish and even in London continue to sample cépes (various species of Boletus), morel, chanterelle and truffle. This list, however, can be much extended, and forty or fifty spacies are far more delicate in flavour than the field mushroom of which, moreover, certain of the wild forms are much superior to those usually cultivated. Formerly, several species were sold in Covent Garden market, and blewits, blue–leg or blue stalks (Tricholoma personatum) is still sold in the north–east, midlands and west, though round about Berwick–on–Tweed it is now bought by dyers for the extracting of a blue dye, the price offered being two shillings a stone; it would be wiser to eat them than to sell them at this price.