I love this hobby! I must research this!
It’s something to be researched and learned slowly, and with the utmost caution. It’s a dangerous hobby.
I have been at it for 10 years and still feel I barely know anything.
That said—it’s fascinating and rewarding.
There are about seven types of mushrooms I now feel comfortable foraging and cooking.
All of these are types I have read extensively about, and watched a zillion videos about, and taken courses about.
But more importantly I have had people much more expert than me show me these mushrooms in the field, to observe not just the fruiting body but everything else going on around it.
The key thing about looking for fungi is to consider not just what the actual mushroom looks like, smells like, tastes like in a tiny spit test, how it reacts to scratching or other testing… It’s also about where you found it.
Is it growing in dirt, on a root, on a tree trunk? What time of year is it? What region are you in? What plants and trees are nearby? Is it wet or dry? What known lookalikes are there—and do these conditions favor the real thing or the lookalike? etc. etc.
I keep a calendar of the earliest and latest dates I’ve found key edibles, both to know when to start looking for them, and as an added safeguard. If, for example, I found something in August which looked like a morel, I would be deeply skeptical—because I’ve never found them earlier than the last days of April or later than the third week in May.
All of these clues and factors may add up to a solid identification.
After that, there is still cleaning and cutting and additional inspection to do. You can even test with ammonia and KOH, or conduct overnight spore tests.
If anything at all isn’t 100% consistent with my experience and study, no way I’m eating it.
I likewise would never, ever eat a wild mushroom based on an “identification” from photos alone. But lots of people ask me to do so. Can’t do it.
All I’m saying—have fun, but proceed with extreme care. There are lots of common wild mushrooms which will kill you within 12-72 hours and there isn’t much anyone can do to help… unless you have some spare human kidneys and livers on hand for immediate transplant.
Most areas have mushroom societies which host walks and talks. In the northeast, the Cornell Cooperative Extension offers many free or low-cost courses. I’ve also found that serious chefs are good guides, because they cannot risk poisoning their patrons.
Best resource of all: Old Russian and Polish ladies
