Beginner's guide · Chapter 5 of 6

Which mushrooms to pick and which to leave

The most important question in this guide is not where to find mushrooms, but which ones to take home. When you are starting out, the answer is simple: very few, and only those you know without any doubt.

Start with two or three species

Nobody learns every mushroom at once. Choose two or three species that grow in your area and learn them well: their forest, their season, how they look young and old. Do not add another until you truly know the previous one. That is how everyone starts, and how those who have been going out for decades still do it.

The best way to learn is in the forest, with someone who knows. Mycological societies organise outings and, in autumn, exhibitions and open sessions where you can bring what you picked for an expert to check. A good field guide helps, but it is no substitute for experienced eyes.

Do not trust an app

Apps that recognise mushrooms from a photo are useful for browsing and for learning names. But they get things wrong, sometimes with great confidence. A photo does not show the smell, the texture or the buried base, which is often where the difference lies. Never eat a mushroom because your phone says so, nor because of a photo someone confirmed for you online.

The ones that stay in the forest

• Any you do not know with complete certainty. If you want to know what they are, take one apart, whole, to ask.
• Buttons and eggs. Very young mushrooms, still closed, cannot be identified safely: at that stage edible mushrooms are mistaken for deadly ones.
• Those past their best. Soft, soggy, maggoty or smelling bad. A good mushroom in bad condition also poisons.
• Those from polluted places. Roadside verges, the surroundings of factories or tips, fields treated with chemicals. Mushrooms accumulate what is in the soil.
• Protected ones. Some regions protect particular species; find out about those in your area.
• The extra ones. Anything you will not eat within a day or two.

The ones with dangerous doubles

Some of the most prized mushrooms look like toxic or deadly ones: the gurumelo, the St George's mushroom, the Caesar's mushroom, the chanterelle, the morel and porcini. Do not choose them as your first species unless you have someone beside you to teach you to tell them apart in the forest. In the section on poisonous mushrooms you will find their doubles and why we give no tricks to separate them.

Never mix in the basket

A doubtful mushroom does not go in with the others, not even for a moment. A piece of a deadly species that breaks off and stays among the good ones is enough to ruin the whole basket. That is why you carry the paper bag apart.