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Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms
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New Wikipedia
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, hence the word mushroom is most often applied to fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) on the underside of the cap just as do store-bought white mushrooms. However, "mushroom" can also refer to a wide variety of gilled fungi, with or without stems, and the term is used even more generally to describe both the fleshy fruiting bodies of some Ascomycota and the woody or leathery fruiting bodies of some Basidiomycota, depending upon the context of the word. Forms deviating from the standard form usually have more specific names, such as "puffball", "stinkhorn", and "morel", and gilled mushrooms themselves are often called "agarics" in reference to their similarity to Agaricus or their placement in the order Agaricales. By extension, "mushroom" can also designate the entire fungus when in culture or the thallus (called a mycelium) of species forming the fruiting bodies called mushrooms.
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100 Edible Mushrooms
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Edible Mushrooms
An edible mushroom is a mushroom that can potentially be safely eaten, including thousands of types of mushrooms that are regularly harvested. Some species that cannot be easily cultivated, such as the truffle or matsutake, are highly prized. On the other hand, some edible mushrooms may have extremely bad taste, such as the Bitter bolete mushroom.
Before assuming that any wild mushroom is edible, check safety rules and be sure of its identification. There is no "test" for edibility other than identifying the species. Even mushrooms that are edible for most people can cause "allergic" reactions in some individuals.
The pharaohs of Egypt enjoyed mushrooms so much, that they decreed mushrooms could only be eaten by royalty and that no commoner could even touch them, thus giving the royal family the entire available supply. In some parts of Eurasia, especially in Russia and Nordic countries, mushrooms are an important part of the diet. Several mushrooms are especially tasty and many are rich on nutrients. Mushrooms are also easily preserved, and historically have provided additional nutrition over winter.
Many prehistoric and a few modern cultures around the world used psychedelic mushrooms for ritualistic purposes. Before 10,000 BCE while people were still hunting and gathering as a part of every day life, women did the gathering. Women were said to be blessed with the ability to see in the dim light so they were successful in foraging for mushrooms and fungi amongst other things[citation needed]. Mushroom cultivation reached the United States in the late 1800s with imported spores from Mexico. Some species such as death cap are extremely poisonous and have been deliberately used as instruments of assassination.[citation needed]
Mycophagy (mai'k%u0252f%u0259d%u0291i), the act of consuming mushrooms, dates back to the times of ancient Roman Caesars. They would have a food taster taste the mushrooms before the Caesar to make sure they were safe.
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The Mushroom Lover's Mushroom Cookbook and Primer
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Button Mushrooms
Agaricus bisporus, known as table mushroom, cultivated mushroom or button mushroom, is an edible basidiomycete fungus which naturally occurs in grasslands, fields and meadows across Europe and North America, though has spread much more widely and is one of the most widely cultivated mushrooms in the world. The original wild form bore a brownish cap and dark brown gills but more familiar is the current variant with a white form with white cap, stalk and flesh and brown gills.
Some grocery stores in the Western world sell this mushroom in canned and fresh preparations. An agaric, its gills are often left on in preparations. It can be found cooked on pizzas and casseroles, stuffed mushrooms, raw on salads, and in various forms in a variety of dishes. Some mycologists, including Paul Stamets, have raised concerns that this mushroom contains trace quantities of a chemical agaritine known to have carcinogenic properties, though whether levels are sufficient to cause harm in consumers is debated.
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A Cook's Book of Mushrooms: With 100 Recipes for Common and Uncommon Varieties
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Tiddledeewinks wrote...
I love fresh mushrooms in fresh salad and fried with onions.
Posted April 25, 2008
by EelKat
I love Eels. I love Bobcat. I am a Giant Squid and a Squid Angel.
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