Picked 7 beautiful Field Mushrooms (also known as meadow or button.)this morning. Now I must go check a few other places that I have had some luck with. There is nothing more rewarding than to fry them up and spread them on toast. Now I have tried others like the Yellow-Fleshed Boletus,Funnel-Shaped Chanterelle, Shaggy mane, Sulfur Shelf(chicken of the wood),Gem-Studded Puffball and the Giant Puffball.
Having tried these I still go back to the field mushroom as my favorite. If you are going to experiment make sure you have a very good book with color plates that show perfectly what you are looking at in the field/woods is exactly the picture in the book. The best test however is to let your spouse try it first then watch for a reaction. If he/she keels over than maybe you should give it a second thought.
However for you mushroom lovers out there you know that this is not a good test because what can be toxic to a degree to your partner can have the very opposite effect to you. So the rule of thumb is try a very little at first and wait a bit.
The book that I have been using is titled " The New Savory Wild Mushroom by Margaret McKenny and Daniel E. Stuntz" 1987.
To quote a sentence by Varro E. Tyler: " Only 1 to 2 percent of the approximately five thousand species of mushrooms growing in North America are significantly toxic".
Beer (adrien)