During the thirty years and more that I have lived at Serignan, Ihave never heard of one case of mushroom poisoning, even the mildest, in the village; and yet there are plenty of mushrooms eaten here, especially in autumn. Not a family but, when on a walk in the mountains, gathers a precious addition to its modest alimentary resources. What do these people gather? A little of everything. Often, when rambling in the neighboring woods, Iinspect the baskets of the mushroom pickers, who are delighted for me to look. I see things fit to make mycological experts stand aghast. I often find the purple bolete, which is classed among the dangerous varieties. I made the remark one day. The man carrying the basket stared at me in astonishment: 'That a poison! The wolf's bread!' he said, patting the plump bolete with his hand. 'What an idea! It's beef marrow, sir, regular beef marrow!' [Author's note:
People use them indiscriminately for cooking purposes, after removing the tubes on the under side, which are easily separated from the rest of the mushroom.]
He smiled at my apprehensions and went away with a poor opinion of my knowledge in the matter of mushrooms.
In the baskets aforesaid, I find the ringed agaric (Armillaria mellea, FRIES), which is stigmatized as valde venenatus by Persoon, an expert on the subject. It is even the mushroom most frequently made use of, because of its being so plentiful, especially at the foot of the mulberry trees. I find the Satanic bolete, that dangerous tempter; the belted milk mushroom (Lactarius zonarius, BULL.), whose burning flavor rivals the pepper of its woolly kinsman; the smooth-headed amanita (Amanita leiocophala, D. C.), a magnificent white dome rising out of an ample volva and fringed at the edges with floury relics resembling flakes of casein. Its poisonous smell and soapy aftertaste should lead to suspicion of this ivory dome; but nobody seems to mind them.
How, with such careless picking, are accidents avoided? In my village and for a long way around, the rule is to blanch the mushrooms, that is to say, to bring them to the boil in water with a little salt in it. A few rinsings in cold water conclude the treatment. They are then prepared in whatever manner one pleases.
In this way, what might at first be dangerous becomes harmless, because the preliminary boiling and rinsing have removed the noxious elements.
My personal experience confirms the efficacy of this rustic method.
At home, we very often make use of the ringed agaric, which is reputed extremely dangerous. When rendered wholesome by the ordeal of boiling water, it becomes a dish of which I have naught but good to say. Then again the smooth-headed amanita frequently appears upon my table, after being duly boiled: if it were not first treated in this fashion, it would be hardly safe. I have tried the blue-turning boletes, especially the purple bolete and the Satanic.
They answered very well to the eulogistic term of beef marrow applied to them by the mushroom picker who scouted my prudent counsels. I have sometimes employed the mottled amanita, so ill famed in the books, without disastrous result. One of my friends, a doctor, to whom I communicated my ideas about the boiling water treatment, thought that he would make the experiment on his own account. He chose the lemon-yellow amanita, which has as bad a reputation as the mottled variety, and ate it at supper.
Everything went off without the slightest inconvenience. Another, a blind friend, in whose company I was one day to taste the Cossus of the Roman epicures, treated himself to the olive tree agaric, said to he so formidable. The dish was, if not excellent, at least harmless.
It results from these facts that a good preliminary boiling is the best safeguard against accidents arising from mushrooms. If the insect, devouring one species and refusing another, cannot guide us in any way, at least rustic wisdom, the fruit of long experience, prescribes a rule of conduct which is both simple and efficacious.
You are tempted by a basketful of mushrooms, but you do not feel very sure as to their good or evil properties. Then have them blanched, well and thoroughly blanched. When it leaves the purgatory of the stewpan, the doubtful mushroom can be eaten without fear.
But this, you will tell me, is a system of cookery fit for savages: the treatment with boiling water will reduce the mushrooms to a mash; it will take away all their flavor and all their succulence.
That is a complete mistake. The mushroom stands the ordeal exceedingly well. I have described my failure to subdue the cepes when I was trying to obtain an extract from them. Prolonged boiling, with the aid of bicarbonate of soda, so far from reducing them to a mess, left them very nearly intact. The other mushrooms whose size entitles them to culinary consideration offer the same degree of resistance. In the second place, there is no loss of succulence and hardly any of flavor. Moreover, they become much more digestible, which is a most important condition in a dish generally so heavy for the stomach. For this reason, it is the custom, in my family, to treat them one and all with boiling water, including even the glorious imperial.
I am a Philistine, it is true, a barbarian caring little for the refinements of cookery. I am not thinking of the epicure, but of the frugal man, the husbandman especially. I should consider myself amply repaid for my persistent observations if I succeeded in popularizing, however little, the wise Provencal recipe for mushrooms, an excellent food that makes a pleasant change from the dish of beans or potatoes, when we can overcome the difficulty of distinguishing between the harmless and the dangerous.
[Recorder's note: Modern mycologists warn against Fabre's claim that boiling neutralizes all mushroom poisons.]
