CONFESSIONS OF A TOADSTOOL EATER.
mono things not generally known to the British public is the fact that there are several funguses, besides the common mushroom, which are good to eat. With this fact, however, some other publics are familiar enough, as the Russian for in- stance, and the public of Rome and other parts of Italy. In the Papal states, indeed, British ideas on the subject of funguses are reversed. Here the received belief is that the common mushroom is the only one of the family which is not poisonous. There, whilst numerous varieties of what we call toadstools are consumed by the popula- tion, the common mushroom is accounted so unwholesome that the inspector of the fungus-market at Rome causes it to be thrown into the Tiber. The type of fungous orthodoxy in England is placed at the Holy See in the Index Expurgatorius of the victualling department. Agaricus campestris anathema esto! The reason of this is said to be that the qualities of the common mushroom, as contradistinguished from the rest of its tribe, vary with the soil whence it springs. Mushrooms differ in different places; toadstools are everywhere the same. Even in this country some people are occasionally disordered by eating the genuine mushroom. Cobbett was once; and, of course, ever afterwards abused mushrooms as unfit to be eaten by anybody. Mushrooms, however, like many good creatures, are liable to unjust censure. Anybody might well expect to be half-poisoned in consequence of eating them stale, in a state of decomposition, and swarming with insects.] g
The fact that sundry native funguses, which grotesque and fanciful forms and colours, and
the marvellous rapidity with which they spring,
have reflected a supernatural glimmer, so to speak,
on their origin, and caused them to be imagined
as the work of those airy spirits
lament in the familiar name of toadstools, are eat-
able, is one which I have personally verified. In!
making my own organisation the test of their pro-
perties, I have laid myself open to be told that I
have shown a proper self-appreciation, inasmuch
as the experiment has been tried on a body
which, according to a celebrated axiom, is the
kind of one most eligible for that purpose. My
and the circles of seared turf, or dark-green grass,
corpus vile, however, has not become vilius for
which are the favourite haunts of many of their
whose sport
Is to make midnight mushrooms;
the tentative use to which it has been thus
applied. I have found all the alleged esculent
fungi that I have eaten, and I have eaten con-
siderable quantities of as many as I have
been able to find, really esculent, and some of
them excellent. None of them has ever dis-
agreed with me in the least, except one called
the Agaricm personcUus , a fungus with a brownish
purple cap and violet gills, which comes up about
the end of October and the beginning of
November. On two occasions, after breakfasting on
this toadstool, I was afflicted with a stomach-
ache, but I have eaten it many times without
any such result. The truth is, that on both
occasions, when it disagreed with me, I had
had it cooked in a peculiar way, and it was not
thoroughly done. The effects which it produced
might have been equally caused by a piece of
under-done pork or a half -boiled potato.
What could induce me to take to fungus- eating? Curiosity, and a certain fascination, exerted by the sort of magical physiognomy characteristic of these strange productions. This singularity of their aspect is generally felt. Their various kinds, are actually, in common language, called fairy rings. Everywhere they have been associated in popular mythology with elves and hobgoblins. The Dutch call them “Duyvel’s broot.” I wanted to know whether the devil’s victuals were as good as I had heard they were; and the weird, uncanny exterior of those vegetable marvels suggested that they might be found to be endowed with a choice mysticism of flavour. Such had always struck me as characterising the taste of the common mushroom, to which I ex- pected to find theirs analogous. I had heard of a treatise, written by the late Dr. Badham, on the “Esculent Funguses of England,” and had often entertained the thought of getting it. This occurred to me one day in passing Highley’s shop in Fleet Street; but not knowing the price of the work, and unwilling to invest any large amount of capital in pleasing a whim, I walked on. In returning along the other side of the Btreet, a few minutes afterwards, I saw the very volume at a bookstall. The price was half-a- guinea, — a hobby might be worth that. I ac-
cordingly disbursed so much— or so little— and