No, relatively very few people in the US collect mushrooms.
Also, the “it’s species they know” thing is often exactly the problem: there are species on one continent that look exactly like a species on another continent, but one of them is edible and the other is deadly. So some poor dumb bastard comes over here from Europe, sees some mushroom he “knows,” eats it, and then – whoops! – dead.
If you want to forage for mushrooms you need to find a local guide to teach you, and even then you’re putting your life in their hands so you’d better be damn sure they’re a good one.
I grew up collecting mushrooms (US), but definitely restricted to only a few varieties which basically couldn’t be confused with anything deadly (some lookalikes maybe, but gastrointestinal distress — not death — would probably be the worst case). And yep, learned by going on mushroom hunting walks through the woods with local old timers who knew what was what.
Also, the “it’s species they know” thing is often exactly the problem: there are species on one continent that look exactly like a species on another continent, but one of them is edible and the other is deadly.
Yeah, I’ve heard this is a thing with some immigrants with East Asian background. There’s a species of mushroom in Asia that is totally edible, but its look-alike in North America is deadly.
So every year there’s a handful of people who accidentally poison themselves, because they didn’t do research on local mushrooms (or the info that’s available is in English and they’re not all that fluent in the language.)
“Relatively few people” may be the standard for your part of the US but in my experience PA, MD, VA all have mushroom hunting as very normal and popular activities.
No, relatively very few people in the US collect mushrooms.
Also, the “it’s species they know” thing is often exactly the problem: there are species on one continent that look exactly like a species on another continent, but one of them is edible and the other is deadly. So some poor dumb bastard comes over here from Europe, sees some mushroom he “knows,” eats it, and then – whoops! – dead.
If you want to forage for mushrooms you need to find a local guide to teach you, and even then you’re putting your life in their hands so you’d better be damn sure they’re a good one.
I grew up collecting mushrooms (US), but definitely restricted to only a few varieties which basically couldn’t be confused with anything deadly (some lookalikes maybe, but gastrointestinal distress — not death — would probably be the worst case). And yep, learned by going on mushroom hunting walks through the woods with local old timers who knew what was what.
Yeah, I’ve heard this is a thing with some immigrants with East Asian background. There’s a species of mushroom in Asia that is totally edible, but its look-alike in North America is deadly.
So every year there’s a handful of people who accidentally poison themselves, because they didn’t do research on local mushrooms (or the info that’s available is in English and they’re not all that fluent in the language.)
“Relatively few people” may be the standard for your part of the US but in my experience PA, MD, VA all have mushroom hunting as very normal and popular activities.