First Fungal Forage

My pockets were bulging. One penknife, two cheese sandwiches, three identification guide books and countless old sweet wrappers from a previous adventure which now served merely as tantalising, mouth-watering annoyances as they rustled against one another.

The resinous aroma of pine needles and damp rotting bark gently lingered in the forest like a fine mist that fair September morning along the Cornish banks of the River Tamar. Somewhere deep in this ancient woodland hid my edible prize, mushrooms!

I felt like the trees were watching me with bemusement as I left the path and meandered my way quietly over and around their ancient buttresses. The charming call of a perched yellow hammer faded as I strayed further into the abode of the beasts I desired. 

Earth balls -
best left to the maggots!

As a less than terrible golfer I was well accustomed to scouring the undergrowth for small, round, white lumps; thus it wasn’t long before I had my first fungal find of the day. Various species of earth ball littered the ground, they were most certainly ‘out of bounds’ as far as I was concerned.

There were plenty of mushrooms to choose from as the sound of the river lured me deeper into the forest. Some looked like they’d been individually burnt around their edge’s, another had spongy spikes hidden underneath. My favourites were those whose inner flesh, on exposure to the air, changed colour almost as fast as the leaves above me changed their shadows in the gentle breeze.

A purple one! My eyes bulged as I became magnetised to the injection of colour sprouting a few centimetres above the sodden leaf litter. “Don’t touch it!” my Mother had always cautiously advised. Most sensible people would do the same but the naughty schoolboy within me had other ideas. I was committed that day, I wanted to eat it.

Despite being a wild mushroom consumer virgin I had some experience when it came to mushroom identification. There was no doubt that this lilac specimen was the Amethyst Deceiver, an edible species. However, putting something purple with such an unpalatable name into one's gob for the first time is no easy feat. Against cautious logic and reason, curiosity waged its war; I opened my mouth and took a bite.

Three amethyst deceivers - lunch!

A beauty! Who dares wins? Perhaps, although my victory was guided by the published works of several fungal experts. Which in turn makes you wonder, how many curious but ignorant people have tried and tested tantalising toadstools only later to have their name associated with that unmistakable guidebook description 'Deadly Poisonous!'