*2011 Winner, International Association of Culinary Professionals Jane Grigson Award
*2011 Finalist, International Association of Culinary Professionals in the Culinary History category
Throughout history, people have had a complex and confusing relationship with mushrooms. Are fungi food or medicine, beneficial decomposers or deadly ‘toadstools’ ready to kill anyone foolhardy enough to eat them? In fact, there is truth in all these statements. In Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares, author Greg Marley reveals some of the wonders and mysteries of mushrooms, and our conflicting human reactions to them.
With tales from around the world, Marley, a seasoned mushroom expert, explains that some cultures are mycophilic (mushroom-loving), like those of Russia and Eastern Europe, while others are intensely mycophobic (mushroom-fearing), including, the US. He shares stories from China, Japan, and Korea-where mushrooms are interwoven into the fabric of daily life as food, medicine, fable, and folklore-and from Slavic countries where whole families leave villages and cities during rainy periods of the late summer and fall and traipse into the forests for mushroom-collecting excursions.
From the famous Amanita phalloides (aka ‘the Death Cap’), reputed killer of Emperor Claudius in the first century AD, to the beloved chanterelle (cantharellus cibarius) known by at least eighty-nine different common names in almost twenty-five languages, Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares explores the ways that mushrooms have shaped societies all over the globe.
This fascinating and fresh look at mushrooms-their natural history, their uses and abuses, their pleasures and dangers-is a splendid introduction to both fungi themselves and to our human fascination with them. From useful descriptions of the most foolproof edible species to revealing stories about hallucinogenic or poisonous, yet often beautiful, fungi, Marley’s long and passionate experience will inform and inspire readers with the stories of these dark and mysterious denizens of our forest floor.
Table of Content
Tales from the forest floor
Part 1. Mushrooms and culture
Passionate about mushrooms : the Russian and Slavic experience
Overcoming distrust : mushrooming in America
Part 2. Mushrooms as food
Leading with our stomachs
The Foolproof Four : updated for a new millennium
Chanterelles
Boletus edulis
The Agaricus brothers
Part 3. Dangerously toxic, deadly interesting
poisonous mushrooms : not as bad as you fear
Mushroom poisoning : not as bad as you fear ; Mushroom poisoning : the potential risks and ways to avoid them
Amanita nightmares : the Death Cap and Destroying Angel
False morels : the Finnish Fugu
A fallen angel
The poison pax : a deadly mystery
Part 4. Mushrooms and the mind : the origin of religion and the pathway to enlightenment
Entheogens : a new way to view hallucinogenic mushrooms
Amanita muscaria : soma, religion, and Santa
Psilocybin : gateway to the soul or just a good high?
Part 5. Mushrooms within living ecosystems
Honey mushrooms : the race for the world’s largest fungus
Fairy rings and fairy tales
Fungal bioluminescence : mushroom nightlights
Who’s eating the truffles?
Woodpeckers, wood decay fungi, and forest health
Part 6. Tools for a new world
Growing mushrooms in the garden : a how-to story
About the author
Greg Marley has a passion for mushrooms that dates to 1971, the year he left his native New Mexico and spent the summer in the verdant woods of central New York. Since then, he has become an avid student and teacher of mycology, as well as a mushroom identification consultant to the Northern New England Poison Control Center and owner of Mushrooms for Health, a company that provides education and products made with Maine medicinal mushrooms. Marley is the author of Mushrooms for Health: Medical Secrets of Northeastern Fungi and Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares: The Love, Lore, and Mystique of Mushrooms. He lives and mushrooms in Rockland, Maine.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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