mantilo: a miscellany

I read an article the other day about mushroom poisoning amongst a Hmong family, with one fatality. Apparently they included wild mushrooms in a meal; not uncommon to do but they happened to gather Eastern American Destroying Angels. Beautiful name, but as it also suggests, deadly. Half of a Destroying Angels (Amanita verna/verosa) is enough to kill someone.

In Southeast Asia, the Paddy Straw Mushroom (Volvariella Volvacea), commonly brown capped but also white in color, is commonly found in dishes. This also happens to look lot like young Destroying Angels. For many Southeast Asians who immigrate to the US, mushroom misidentification and subsequent poisoning occur often enough to become a public health issue. Death Cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides) are also similar to Paddy Straw Mushrooms.

So it isn’t stupidity but rather forgetting a cardinal rule of mushroom gathering: what mushroom information relevant to your area doesn’t always apply to others.

Paddy Straw Mushroom	Eastern American Destroying Angel	Death Cap
Young Paddy Straw Mushroom	Young Eastern Destroying Angel	Young Death Cap

Coincidentally, Kristin posted an entry about her own mephitic mushroom experience in Japan.

Yellow Chanterelle, which I found over at Vilas Park

An interesting online guide to wild mushroom hunting. I like this one in particular because it also warns of poisonous doppelgangers to edible mushrooms. Of course, when mushroom hunting, one should always have several mushroom guides to safeguard against any misidentification.

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