RE: Little Ru on Risks and Expectations
One very quick reference to the "Penny Bun" photo in your post @insight-out, which I did not comment on yesterday. Very nice picture to see you holding one and enjoyed reading how you wove reference to mushrooms then throughout this post.
Here in the western U.S., I learned to find mushrooms years ago, but only was comfortable myself with "harvesting" just one species in the wild and bringing them home to eat. We called them "King Boletes," but I believe they are certainly a close "cousin" of your "Penny Bun," if not the exact same mushroom.
Elsewhere, I have made brief mention of this in past posting "in here" and referenced possibly writing a travel post about my "mushroom hunting" days with family, particularly my youngest son (who has very fond memories of them) ...
Just one small problem. We've moved more than once since then and my pictures of that time are in a box somewhere (I think / hope ...) Who knows. Maybe one day ...
Oh, this is so exciting! This is the exact same mushroom. They are delicious! I didn't know how is it called in English and just liked one of the names in the dictionary - penny bun (sounded somehow nice to me) :)
I would love a post about your mushroom "hunting" :D Especially, with the old photos if you find them :)
Do you still go out to collect mushrooms?
Agreed @insight-out that "penny bun" has a certain ring to it. 😉
No, not in some time. With my children out in the "big, wide world" on their own, I have less incentive for undertaking the "adventure" of tracking them down ...
Here these are found at elevations of +10,000 feet (+ 3 km). At lower elevations, we have found "cousins" which, at first glance, appear to be the same, but they are not. If you cut into the "meat" of them, they will turn a purplish color. While not poisonous, they do not taste good at all ...
I remember telling my wife, after she had expressed her concerns about what I was doing finding and eating wild mushrooms, that I had done some research and had good news. And bad news ...
The good news? It is very rare eating wild mushrooms will be fatal. The bad news? Eat the wrong one(s) and you will suffer serious damage to your liver! Okay, that was enough for me to just focus on these, as they are the most distinctive among those found in the mountains where we live ...
The "rest of the story?" After noticing I ate them and did not die or anything else (you know, the "royal food taster" ... 😉), my wife joined me in eating them in our omelettes for breakfast and agree they taste yummy!
First of all, thank you for converting the feet into km for me! I noticed that you did it in some other comments you left me and it is so so kind and thoughtful!
Second, 3 km high! I didn't realize that you live at such high ground!
About the mushrooms... this penny bun doesn't have a poisonous double here and it is easy to be distinguished. And they are truly delicious! And your wife is lucky to have a royal food taster at home :D
We call them манатарка (manatarka). They are expensive and valuable mushrooms here and around Europe as a whole.
The other one that is in this post could also be found in the US (links here and here). Although there is another mushroom that it could be mistaken for (but not a deadly one).
I am very happy that I can share my mushroom passion with someone. It's a relatively new thing for me and most of the times I am only observing and taking pictures :)
Yes well @insight-out ...
... I don't live at that elevation. We just have to go out into the mountains and get up to that level to find the really good places for King Boletes.
Yes, nice to "talk" with someone who enjoys this "hobby!" Those other ones look familiar, but I decided I just didn't want to chance it. We see many other types out in the mountains. Once, early on in developing this interest, my beloved and I came across a family gathering many types of mushrooms in their baskets.
Expressing our interest, they were happy to show us what they had harvested. Beyond the danger it represented for us, I also noted that a lot of them were remarkably
small"dainty" ... 😉 ... and it seemed like a lot of work for very little benefit (eating ...), let alone the added risk (there's that word again ...).P.S. Thank you for noticing I was making the conversions for you. Something I have tried to consistently do in all of my posting "in here," as I am well aware much of the world is metric-based ...