Mushroom hunting · Oct 25, 09:40 AM
I got the River Cottage Handbook No.1 Mushrooms by John Wright as an anniversary present. It’s a great book with 250ish pages of mushroom information. It describes 50 edible and 22 poisonous fungi which are common in the UK. But there is a small catch…
The problem is that there are tens of thousands of types of wild mushroom that might be found in the UK. Even accounting for most of them being uncommon, it’s easy to see that the River Cottage book, with its aspiration to eating wild mushrooms, is being a bit optimistic. It is more food for thought than actual food.
Still, I found the book an engaging read and well illustrated (which is essential if you are to have any hope of identifying the fungi). The recipes and ideas will work as well with supermarket mushrooms if the wild ones remain elusive. I plan on photographing mushrooms for the time being rather than eating them. I have started my ‘collection’ with some pictures taken at Burbage Common at the start of October.
Mouse over the small images to see them full size
The camera seems to do a reasonable job of picking out the mushrooms using the flash in the dimly lit woodland. Mostly I prefer to leave the flash off but in this case it produces much better pictures.
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There is a Leicester Fungus Study Group based in Birstall if you are interested. If you are I can get details for you as my mother used/may still be part of it.
— MikeP Nov 4, 12:58 AM #