324 ONCE A
Badham, in the pursuit of gastronomies! my-
cology, became my guide, philosopher, and friend.
I can confidently recommend him to others who
may be inclined to pursue the same path of in-
vestigation, which will conduct them through
pleasant places, if they delight in woods and
lanes.
If a second edition of this book has been published, some gross but obvious errors of typo- graphy and arrangement will, no doubt, have been corrected. It is pleasant reading — the sprightly work of a botanist and a scholar.
As yet I have been unable to test the merits of all the fungi enumerated by Badham as esculent. Of those which I have tasted, some, certainly, do deserve his commendations; but, I think, not all. In the first place, I have not found one of them preferable in flavour to the common mushroom, except the Agaricus prunulus , and perhaps the Agaricus nebularis. The first of these resembles, but surpasses, the ordinary mushroom, and has also a peculiar, and very delicate smack of its own, which is a little like its smell, and that may be compared to the perfume of clematis, or of bitter almonds, though I confess I have heard it likened to the scent of yellow soap. It is generally a white, cream-coloured, or whity-brown fungus, sometimes, on being plucked, turning in some places faintly yellow, with a cap often lobed, very fleshy, thick, and when young, firm. The gills are at first colourless, as the cap expands they become slightly flesh-coloured, then assume a neutral tint, and lastly turn black. The stalk is very thick in proportion to the cap, and generally bulges much at the base. Badham says that this fungus appears only in the spring. He concluded this from ob- servations which were perhaps too local. I have never found the prunulus before nearly the middle of June, and have met with some specimens as late as November. Like other fungi, it requires for the antecedents of its appearance, some amount of rain, particularly thundershowers, followed by moist temperate weather. It is very good broiled; but the best way of cooking it is to bake it, with a little butter, pepper, and salt, in an oven, on a plate, under a basin. A great quantity of gravy comes out of it, mingled, in the case of a good specimen, with osmazome, which tastes very much like the similar brown exudation on the skin of a roast leg of mutton. An epicure with no particular weakness for funguses would accept the prunulus as a remarkably flavorous common mushroom; from which, however, it differs not only in conformation, and the other sensible properties, above-mentioned, but also in the ca- pability of being dried, and of keeping in that state; whereas the common mushroom is deli- quescent, and rots in two or three days. Cut into pieces, and allowed to dry, the prunulus may be kept for a year and more, for the pur- pose of being put into hashes and stews, which it choicely flavours.
The prunulus grows in parks and woods, some- times near the foot of a tree, sometimes in the open, often in rings, generally in company, now and then solitary. In common with many other funguses, it oomes up year after year in the same places. Those who have learned to love it, and
WEEK. [Octobxb 15, 1859.
to look for it, will often be exasperated by finding
the finest specimens knocked to pieces by the
boys who have picked it for a mushroom, and
destroyed it on supposing themselves to have dis-
covered it to be a toadstool.
The Agaricus nebularis is a fungus which appears about the middle of October, generally in fairy rings, sometimes alone. It is at first nearly white, both cap and gills, but soon, especially in dry weather, the cap becomes brown, and the gills turn rather Jbrownish. The latter are slightly decurrent; that is, instead of extending horizon- tally under the cap from circumference to centre, they run a little way down the stem in concave lines, delineating a form like that of a bell- mouthed wine-glass, only broader and shallower in proportion. This is a very excellent fungus: it has, in addition to the mushroom flavour, a certain piquancy, and it also contains much osma- zome, so that its flesh, of all the funguses that I know, possesses most their common character- istic of resembling meat. Broiling is the best way of cooking this toadstool; the process which deve- lopes its savour in the highest degree. When fresh gathered, on being cut or broken, it exhales an odour which has been compared to that of curd- cheese. Hence it is termed, in some places, the “New Cheese ” mushroom. I suppose the Agaricus nebularis is identical with what the people in the North of England, meaning the same thing with botanists, call the Fog Mushroom. It does cer- tainly come up in foggy weather, if that is what is intended by the word nebularis. Badham gives this toadstool the character of being pre-eminently light of digestion. I can indorse this testimony. Here may be mentioned the fact that several other kinds of toadstools have been found by me not only not to produce any dyspeptic symptoms, but actually to create, after having been eaten, a positive sense of comfort and wellbeing in the interior, like that which fortunate persons expe- rience now and then when they have partaken of the results of very excellent cookery. Some French dishes are examples under the latter head; and British prejudice may suggest that the probable nature of their ingredients renders it no wonder that any sensations consequent on indulgence in them, should exactly resemble those to which I have compared their effects on the digestive system.
A very delicate and dainty toadstool is the Boletus edulis; a toadstool which would generally be called a regular one — emphatically a toadstool — a fungus not like a mushroom at all as to appear- ance, except in having a cap and a stalk. Instead of gills under the cap, it is furnished with tubes arranged perpendicularly, not horizontally, and standing dose together, so as to present a surface consisting of their united orifices, which are at first closed, and, when the cap has just expanded, give its under part the appearance of being filled with drab-coloured cement, day, or wax. After- wards they open, and then the cap, beneath, looks like a mass of sponge, in colour and porosity very similar to the section of a piece of ginger- bread. The outside of the cap varies from light, dark brown, or bronze, to bay or nearly black, or
to a mixture of these tints. The stalk, when very