Not all mushrooms are edible and you have to pay close attention to what you collect or buy. Great dangers can be hidden under a graceful appearance!
Mushrooms are undoubtedly one of the foods that Italians adore and there are many recipes that can be found in cookbooks or even on the web. Be careful, however, when you decide to collect them and not to buy them, because very often the appearance is deceiving and the varieties with the most pleasant appearance can be nothing short of lethal.
Mushrooms, pay attention to what we put on our table
There are many anecdotes about how to recognize a “good” mushroom from one that can prove to be lethal, but what comes to our ears does not always turn out to be correct and you can take great risks when you decide to “go for mushrooms”.
In fact, every year in Europe more than 10 thousand poisonings occur due to varieties that have proved to be poisonous and among these about 200 have proved to be lethal for those who ate them.
If you don’t want to give up the pleasure of getting Sunday lunch by yourself but don’t want to risk your diners inadvertently, there are guidelines that must absolutely be followed.
Mushrooms, how to recognize poisonous ones
One of the first tests that can be done to recognize edible ones is the very famous garlic test. If the latter blackens during cooking, it means that the harvested variety is toxic to humans.
An urban legend then establishes that all white mushrooms are edible, but this is a false belief and it is always better to make sure of what has been collected with the above-mentioned evidence. The highly toxic spring amanita, in fact, is among the clearest in nature but also the most lethal – to the point of having earned the name of ovum of death.
To be on the safe side, on the other hand, you must prefer those with dark gills (i.e. the part under the cap of the mushroom) and avoid instead those with the stem or the red hat – such as the emetic russula or the malefic boletus – or that have a ring under the stem.
In any case it is good to keep in mind that in order to collect mushrooms you must be in possession of a card issued by your area of belonging – regulated by a regulation available on the site of your region.