202 ON THE PREPARATION OF FUNGI FOR THE TABLE. 



eat of rotten fruit or tainted meat they are not surprised if they 

 are taken ill in consequence. Yet they will eat putrifying mush- 

 rooms, and, when the same consequence ensues, both they and 

 their doctors (in England) will assume that a poisonous principle 

 inherent in the mushroom was to blame ; and henceforth they will 

 nurture the strongest prejudice against all Fungi, fresh or rotten. 

 Surely this is not very sensible. 



It is further to be noted that no kind of mushroom is good when 

 it is full of the larvse of insects— maggoty, in point of fact. 

 Natural repugnance would generally suffice to prevent such indi- 

 viduals being eaten ; but some people are not particular. Mush- 

 rooms full of maggots are usually in the first stages of decay, and 

 hence are more or less nnwholesome. Unsound specimens are 

 always to be rejected. Relative age, too, must be taken into 

 account. Species of firm flesh are often too tough when old, and 

 only young individuals may be selected. This is especially the 

 case with tree-Fungi. 



On the Continent many of the edible Fungi are eaten raw, 

 either simply with bread and salt, or dressed as salad. Probably 

 our palates will only be satisfied with a few species this way ; the 

 Puffballs and the Oaktongue, for example. A French author has 

 gone so far as to assert that eating mushrooms raw is the only way 

 to avoid accidents, and that cooking is responsible for poisonings. 

 He founds his advice upon the assumption that poisonous plants 

 taste unpleasantly, and would hence be rejected in the raw state, 

 wliile cookery might disguise their unpalatableness. But the theory 

 is wholly adverse to facts, and is therefore inadmissible. Several 

 very poisonous kinds are quite bland and pleasant to the taste ; 

 numerous thoroughly wholesome sorts are forbidding in flavour 

 until properly dressed. And lastly, in many kinds actually 

 possessing deleterious essences, these are more or less dissipated 

 by culinary processes. The author is an advocate for careful and 

 suitable cookery, and there are only a few species that he recom- 

 mends for consumption au naturel. 



It is a certain fact, that various kinds of Fungi in whose tissues 

 there exists some essence deleterious to the human economy are 

 yet commonly eaten by the people in foreign localities. Probably 

 it is this fact which has given rise to a popular but erroneous 

 notion that the identical species of fungus might be poisonous 

 when it gi-ew in one place, but not so when it grew in another. 

 Upon careful investigation, however, it turns out that the mush- 



