14 EDIBLE MUSHROOMS 



appear to be as true to-day for Britain as when he 

 uttered it, and applies with even greater force to the 

 similar, I may say identical, neglected tribute of Nat- 

 ure in our own American woods and fields, where the 

 growth of fungi is especially rich. 



The fungus-eaters of Britain, it is said, are even 

 to-day merely a conspicuous coterie, while in Amer. 

 ica this particular sort of specialist is 

 Fungus more generally an isolated " crank " who 

 epicures is compelled to " fliock alone," contem- 

 plated with a certain awe by his less 

 venturesome fellows, and otherwise variously consid- 

 ered, either with envy of his experience and scientific 

 knowledge, or more probably as an irresponsible, who 

 continually tempts Providence in his foolhardy ex- 

 periments with poison. 



But what a contrast do we find on the Continent in 

 the appreciation of the fungus as an article of diet! 

 In France, Germany, Russia, and Italy, for example, 

 where the woods are scoured for the perennial crop, 

 and where, through centuries of popular familiarity 

 and tradition, the knowledge of its economic value 

 has become the possession of the people, a most im- 

 portant possession to the poor peasant who, perhaps 

 for weeks together, will taste no other 

 Chemical animal food. I say '' animal food " ad- 

 constituents visedly; for, gastronomically an d chem - 

 ically considered, the flesh of the mu sh- 

 j:oom_ _has been proven to be almost identical wi th 

 meat, and possesses the same nniin'^hmn r propertie s. 

 This animal affinity is further suggested in its physi- 

 ological life, the fungus reversing the order of all 



