Mushroom Books
Mushroom Book Reviews - Find Wild Mushrooms
Mushroom Books
One of the best things about mushrooms is that anyone can pick them - armed with a little knowledge (or, as I will go on to explain, a decent mushroom book), just about anyone can go out and pick some exciting, fresh mushrooms and go home and eat them the very same day. Mushrooms will grow pretty much anywhere, so the chances are that there are going to be some growing somewhere near you, and its simply up to you to find them! Of course, once finding them the next question that you will ask yourself is are they edible...
To be able to pick and eat wild mushrooms you don't need to be hugely experienced or to be some kind of mycological expert, but you will need advice. Advice can take many forms - you could go on a mushroom foray with someone who does have extensive knowledge of mushrooms, you could arrange to go on a foray with your local mycological society, or, perhaps as most people do, you could purchase a good mushroom guide book and simply take this out with you when you go hunting for mushrooms. Anyone can pick mushrooms, but you will need to have patience, be sensible, respect the environment in which you are looking for mushrooms, and finally you must also be very careful! If you pick and eat the wrong kind of mushroom you could become very ill, and many people have died as a result of eating a mis-identified mushroom.
Now, any mushroom guide book that you look at will probably warn you that you can't eat a mushroom simply from identifying it in that one particular book - they will recommend that you check in a second, and maybe third book. This is because it is very easy to make a mistake when picking mushrooms, as the fungi often change and vary enormously in size and appearance. Not one book will tell you to eat a mushroom just because you think you've found it listed as edible in their book, and this is mainly due to the fact that if you have made a mistake you might try and sue the author of that book (and obviously its due to the fact that you could become ill or die as a result of eating the wrong kind of mushroom). So, you must realise that it will be a good idea to own more then one mushroom guide book because this way you can cross-reference each of the books with the mushroom that you have found, making sure that it meets the criteria as described in each of the books. About 3 mushroom guide books should be enough in my opinion, but you can never be too careful when eating wild mushrooms, so only eat them if you are 100% sure that they are safe. Its not worth risking your life just to have a little pleasure from eating a mushroom!
Another thing that is worth noting is that some edible mushroom book guides will tell you a mushroom is edible whilst another will tell you it is poisinous. For example, the shaggy ink cap mushroom is listed as edible in the River Cottage mushroom guide (albeit there is a warning that has been noted too), whereas in David Pegler's Easy Edible Mushroom book it is listed as poisinous. This is because the mushroom is safe to eat until alcohol has been consumed - so the mushroom becomes poisinous once alcohol is in your system. In this instance, the River Cottage guide book has warned people not to eat this if they are going to be in contact with any kind of alcohol, whilst David Pegler's Easy Edible Mushroom book has simply told people that it is poisinous. So as you can see, different books will tell you different things, and its well worth having a few mushroom guide books just for reference. Some authors like to be a little adventurous whilst others don't want to risk their readers becoming ill. Another thing worth mentioning is that some edible mushrooms are simply left out of books either because they are too rare and so you aren't allowed to pick them (such as the Hericium erinaceus - Lions Mane Mushroom), or because they are too easily confused with other poisinous species. Again, this is another reason to purchase several mushroom guide books - but obviously if you are at all worried about making the wrong decision, or if you feel that you don't want to be a very adventurous wild mushroom consumer, then it is best to stick to the "safe", easy to identify mushrooms.
Here are 3 of my favourite wild mushroom books, which I highly recommend you purchase if you are interested in being able to eat wild mushrooms:
River Cottage Mushroom Handbook
Number 1 on my list of wild mushroom guide books has to be this one, released to accompany the River Cottage TV series on Channel 4 which features Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. The book has been written by mycologist John Wright who also sometimes appears on the TV program. You may fear that a book on mushrooms written by a mycological expert is going to be too technical or to be too scientific and not very personable, but this book is not like that at all - it is very funny, it appeals to all types of people (experts and novices), and it is very easy to use.
The book is hardback and contains 256 pages, and although it is a little bulky and therefore unlikely to fit into any pockets on your trousers its still essential that you take it with you on any kind of walks in the countryside - you never really know what kind of fungi you could encounter.
The book has a good introduction to the subject of mushrooms, describing their life-cycle and explaining when and where you should look to find edible mushrooms. It also has a handy "step-guide", in which you can identify mushrooms simply by following a chart, answering questions which eventually lead you to a specific mushroom. As with all mushroom guide books it contains many pages about each edible mushroom, as well as pages dedicated to the poisinous mushrooms, which is essential because you will need to know what these look like too, incase you ever encounter one and are tempted to pick it. On each of the edible mushroom pages it warns you of the mushrooms that look similar but which are in fact poisinous, very helpful for when you are hunting for wild mushrooms. Towards the back of the book you will also find many excellent mushroom recipes, and there is also a section on preserving the mushrooms that you have just picked.
For each species of mushroom the book will display a clear photograph of that specific mushroom growing in the wild, and it will give you some set parameters for that mushroom. For example it will tell you the type of location that the mushroom will grow in (sandy soil/chalk soil/in pine forests/on beech trees, etc). It will also tell you at what time of the year that that mushroom should appear (although this sometimes various, for example if the summer is particularly wet then mushrooms might appear earlier in that year). It also tells you specific details such as spore print colour, gill types, cap description, stem description, smell, taste (obviously only for the mushrooms that are edible when eaten raw), flesh description, frequency (is a mushroom likely to be common, rare, etc).
Overall this is an excellent mushroom guide book and should be the first on any budding mushroom-pickers wishlist, it is available for around £8 on Amazon which represents superb value for money.
Click Here To Buy The River Cottage Mushroom Handbook From Amazon
David Pegler's Easy Edible Mushroom Guide
The second book that I recommend to any mushroom hunter is the Easy Edible Mushroom Guide, an Easy Nature Guides book, written by Professor David Pegler. Prof. David Pegler has written many popular books on Fungi and was previously the Head of Mycology at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and has been studying mushrooms for over 40 years.
In many ways this book is very similar to the River Cottage Mushroom Handbook (see above). Again the book has an introduction to the subject of fungi, including a lifecycle, and information on the time of year that many edible mushrooms should appear in the wild. This book goes into less detail then the River Cottage book when introducing people to the subject of mushrooms, but many people won't be bothered by this, preferring to only use it when trying to positively identify mushrooms in the wild. Strangely this book has exactly the same number of pages as the River Cottage Mushroom book - 256, although this book is not a hardback cover. Again you would struggle for this book to fit in your trouser pocket, but it is still smaller and less bulky then the River Cottage book.
Again, this book has pages dedicated to each edible species of mushroom, and then pages for the poisinous mushrooms too. It contains some excellent photographs of the fungi, but it also includes some hand-drawn pictures. For each mushroom it shows pictures of mushrooms that look similar - useful for warning you of potential dangers before you make a positive identification. Although many of these pictures look good I still prefer to see photographs of mushrooms where possible as I find its hard to compare a mushroom to a picture (this is not a recommended way of identifying a mushroom anyway!).
For each mushroom in the book it also shows which months of the year you are likely to find this mushroom - this comes in very handy as a quick way for you to check that the mushroom you think it is is actually in season or not. Each mushroom also has its own edibility score - with the nicest tasting mushrooms receiving 3 marks, and the less-appealing ones receiving 1 mark. Similarly for the poisinous mushrooms they receive a score warning you of quite how poisinous they are - with the deadly mushrooms receiving 3 marks, and the least-poisinous ones receiving 1 mark. Each mushroom only receives a few paragraphs of text describing the mushroom whereas the River Cottage Mushroom book usually has at least a page of text describing each one. Although this text isn't exactly essential, its nice to be able to read it to find out more information about that specific mushroom. Again this book has a few mushroom related food recipes listed at the back, but not quite as many as the River Cottage book, and in not quite as much detail (and unfortunately no photos of the finished meal).
I really recommend this book to anyone interested in picking and eating wild mushrooms, as the title says it is an Easy Edible Mushroom Guide - its very easy to use, and when cross-referenced with the River Cottage handbook you should have no problems when it comes to identifying any edible mushrooms. Not as detailed as River Cottage but just as easy to use, and is currently available on Amazon for around £8.50, again great value for money.
Click Here To Buy David Pegler's Easy Edible Mushroom Guide From Amazon
Roger Phillips' Mushrooms and Other Fungi of Great Britain and Europe
Pick up any mushroom guide or mushroom related book and you will hear the author recommend that you go out and buy the "Mushrooms and Other Fungi of Great Britain and Europe" book written by Roger Phillips, and I couldn't agree less. Its not the sort of book that you will likely ever take out of the house for when you go mushroom hunting, but it is the perfect reference book for the times that you find a mushroom that you aren't quite sure of (mainly because the book is very large and takes quite a bit of time to use). it is around A4 size and contains 288 pages. The book lacks much text on the general subject of mushrooms, but thats not really relevant as the main use of the book is the many excellent, occasionally life-size colour photographs which is used for helping you to identify your mushrooms.
The book covers just about any mushroom found in Great Britain and Europe, so whatever you find on your travels it should be listed in here. Each mushroom has a few paragraphs devoted to it, describing the cap, the stem, the flesh, the gills, whether the mushroom is common or rare, and of course whether it is edible or not edible.
This book is still a quality book for any mushroom hunter to own, and despite being published nearly 30 years it still remains one of the best books around, with some wonderful photographs of many interesting and exciting fungi. You can currently purchase this book from Amazon's Marketplace for around £30, an investment well worth making.
Click Here To Buy Roger Phillips' Mushroom and Other Fungi of Great Britain and Europe From Amazon
Mushroom Books