From: rusty.hinge@foobar.girolle.co.uk   
      
   Steve Peek wrote:   
      
   > I've been collecting and eating wild mushrooms for 40 years or so and have   
   > only been sick once.   
      
   I started on my own account with agarics, puffballs and Merasmius   
   oreades around 1951/2. Prior to that if I found a mushroom I gave it to   
   my mother to assess.   
      
   At boarding school, I was lucky enough to have a teacher who not only   
   knew about fungi, but would cook them in his study for interested brats.   
      
   I too have only suffered poisoning once (1960), and I can only presume   
   that what I thought was Amanitopsis vaginata var. fulva (Amanita fulva)   
   was Amanitopsis strangulata (Amanita inaurata).   
      
   I ate Cantharellus cibarius, Boletus chrysenteron and the amanita, so it   
   was pretty obvious which one to suspect - in retrospect.   
      
   There weren't many illustrated books on fungi then, and those worth   
   having cost an arm and a leg and then some. None of the ones I had   
   access to mentioned the existence of A. inurata...   
      
   > Many years ago I ate what I thought was A. campestris   
   > raw. Within a couple of hours I has the classic symptoms, vicious cramps,   
   > throwing up form both ends, etc... Did I make a mistake?, Had the specimen   
   > been contaminated?, Had the lawn it grew on been treated with chemicals?,   
   > Did an alien piss on it? All I know for sure is that is was a very long time   
   > before I tried that one again.   
      
   In the UK we have Agaricus xanthodermus, A. pilatianus and A.   
   placomyces, all of which I can eat, but many can't.   
      
   I don't eat them though, because I knew someone else who happily ate   
   them, but one day did so, was horribly ill, and was never able to eat   
   anything with any sort of mushroom in again. (Even if she didn't know it   
   was there!)   
      
   Fate worse than death...   
      
   --   
   Rusty   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)