# Those big, white hand sized mushrooms that pop up in your front yard. Safe to eat? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 27, 2006, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320 "2006-09-27T04:21:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/21 "2006-09-27T18:59:23Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] You saw that movie, too? What a coincidence… Because I didn’t, and have no clue what movie you’re talking about. [/QUOTE] Oh. Sorry. You were talking about an old mycologist, and a young mycologist…and they get an old priest and a young priest in the Exorcist. I just thought you were correlating the two of them. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/22 "2006-09-27T19:17:46Z")
[QUOTE=David Simmons] You guys are making this to complicated. The easy way to tell edible mushrooms is to eat only the ones you find in the produce section of the grocery. 😉 [/QUOTE] I think I figured this out when I was about five. There are mushrooms, which come from the grocery store, and there are toadstools, which come from the yard. You shouldn’t eat toadstools. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/23 "2006-09-27T20:12:36Z")
Pick them. Clean them with a mushroom brush. Saute them in butter. Put them on a big platter. Look at them fondly and dump them in the garbage! ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/24 "2006-09-27T20:24:45Z")
Peter Mayle, in one of his Provence books, notes how French pharmacists are qualified to identify edible mushrooms. He says you’ll see fungus-identifying charts in pharmacies, and during mushroom hunting time, lines of folks bearing baskets of 'shrooms for the pharmacist’s inspection. You’d never see that in America. Just think of the liability in case of a mis-identification. ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/25 "2006-09-27T20:51:29Z")
Would a poison mushroom taste any different than a non-poison one? ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/26 "2006-09-27T21:09:01Z")
[QUOTE=Jake] Would a poison mushroom taste any different than a non-poison one? [/QUOTE] Never having eaten one I can’t say. However it would seem that they don’t taste bad or funny because people do eat them and die. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/27 "2006-09-27T21:10:31Z")
[QUOTE=Jake] Would a poison mushroom taste any different than a non-poison one? [/QUOTE] [Wikipedia says that some poisonous mushrooms supposedly taste good.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_poisoning) I would think that they differ in taste like non-poisonous mushrooms do. [There are poisonous mushrooms that are so toxic, it’s not safe to taste them and spit them out](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethal_webcaps) to determine if they’re poisonous, in case you’re thinking that might be a good way to identify poisonous mushrooms. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/28 "2006-09-27T21:28:59Z")
I should mention that there is at least one substance that is toxic and supposedly tastes pretty good to the children and pets who ingest it- antifreeze (ethylene glycol). The toxin that causes botulism, which is extremely poisonous, [doesn’t make tainted foods taste bad](http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/jun99/927901876.Ag.r.html). That being the case, and the fact that different species of poisonous mushrooms use different types of toxins, there’s no reason to think that poisonous mushrooms should have a distinctive taste, or even that they should all taste bad. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/29 "2006-09-27T21:38:17Z")
I’ve always wondered about wild musrooms-they are said to taste much better than cultivated ones. But the downside-death from liver failure! Every year, I read about deaths from eating mis-identified mushrooms! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/30 "2006-09-27T21:55:16Z")
[QUOTE=Jake] Would a poison mushroom taste any different than a non-poison one? [/QUOTE] Not necessarily - I hear that death caps (Amanita Phalloides) are pretty tasty, but lets put this all into perspective: Of the many thousands of species of fungi, probably at least half of them don’t even remotely resemble anything you would wish to eat. Of the thousands of species that look like mushrooms, the majority will be rare, or endemic to specific habitats; the upshot of which is that, unless you go to great pains to find the others, you’re only likely to encounter maybe a couple of hundred or so of the more common species . Of these, the majority of those that you wouldn’t want to eat are just _inedible_ - because of bitterness, nasty texture, turning bright blue on cooking, etc. There are, in normal life, about a few dozen species of common, highly-worthwhile edible fungi, and a couple of dozen species of common poisonous ones (of which maybe half are deadly) None of this is to downplay the seriousness of mistakenly eating deadly poisonous fungi. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you could die. But you don’t have to become an expert in identifying every single species of fungus; you only have to become adept in _positively_ identifying those that are common, and worthwhile; if you learn to positively identify these (including an dichotomous understanding of species that can be mistaken for them) and just ignore anything else you find, it’s really very safe. People only suffer or die of poisoning because they (or whoever picked the fungi) failed to observe these simple precautions. It’s not to be taken lightly, but it’s not impossibly hard. ---
**Author:** ![homeskillet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/7ba0ec/32.png) [@homeskillet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/homeskillet)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/31 "2006-09-27T22:00:05Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] There’s at least one edible species in America which is easy to positively identify: the morel. [/QUOTE] Heh! Yeah, unless you confuse it with the deadly poisonous **False Morel!** :eek: Actually you can eat them, so long as they’re prepared properly. True Morels are one of my favorites and I have fond memories of hunting for them when I was little. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/32 "2006-09-27T22:00:12Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] I’ve always wondered about wild musrooms-they are said to taste much better than cultivated ones. [/QUOTE] Have you ever eaten a ripe, homegrown tomato, picked and eaten sun-warmed off the plant? The difference between this and those pale orange crunchy balls of insipid water sold as tomatoes in the supermarkets - this difference - pales in comparison to the difference between wild-picked and shop-bought mushrooms. ---
**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/33 "2006-09-27T22:01:28Z")
[QUOTE=astro] I’ve seen a bunch of mushrooms popping up lately. They’re the typical white flat top kind that are around the size of a persons open hand. I’m in Maryland and these tend to pop up n th middle of the lawn. How can I tell if these are safe to eat? I’d like to use them in some soups & stews. How can I be sure? [/QUOTE] [Wikipedia speaks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_hunting) > [@](#): > > An identification should be made with no less than size, color, gill connectivity, environment, a cross section, bruising color, odor, and a spore print. “big, white hand sized” doesn’t nearly cut it. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2006, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/34 "2006-09-27T22:10:35Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] I’ve always wondered about wild musrooms-they are said to taste much better than cultivated ones. But the downside-death from liver failure! Every year, I read about deaths from eating mis-identified mushrooms! :smack: [/QUOTE] Some of the mushrooms you buy in the supermarket _are_ wild mushrooms. If you’re buying morels, [they’re almost certainly wild](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morel). ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/35 "2006-09-28T00:23:56Z")
I’ve spent some time with amateur (but rather experienced) mycologists and come away with the impression that “mainstream” wild-mushroom enthusiasts are interested in just a few types. Morels, king boletes and chanterelles seem to lead the list. These are superb eating and not easy to confuse with harmful species. By contrast, “white flat top” mushrooms are unlikely to be choice and are easily confused with dangerous types. So they will be eaten only by the true experts or the very foolish. ---
**Author:** ![WishIHadACoolName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a587f6/32.png) [@WishIHadACoolName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WishIHadACoolName)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/36 "2006-09-28T00:53:41Z")
My brother is an experienced “rams’ head” hunter. He was taught as a child (by our grandfather) to identify these and other edibles that grow in this part of Pennsylvania. Rams’ Heads are big, giant mushrooms that look like a bunch of ears or dying leaves. He assures me that they are delicious. I’lll never know. In this area, people who know where to find these mushrooms (also called Hen of the Woods) refuse to tell anyone where they “shroom”. They grow on oak. There are people who will actually drive miles out of their way to “feed” a mushroom a bottle of milk, allegedly to make it grow bigger or something. I’ve seen Rams’ Head mushrooms too large for me to lift, literally 4-5 feet across. Said brother usually fills a pickup truck with them every early fall, and does whatever it is he does with them and then freezes them for use all year. I do not eat mushrooms. I definitely would not eat mushrooms from my yard. I don’t step on them either, as that just spreads the spores around. ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/37 "2006-09-28T05:04:25Z")
Also, unintentionally consuming a psilocybin containing mushroom or something in the fly agaric family without realizing it may make one wish they had eaten the kills-you-dead-kind and regret it for the rest of their lives. Although the chance of doing so by accident is fairly small. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/38 "2006-09-28T07:35:42Z")
[QUOTE=Xema] I’ve spent some time with amateur (but rather experienced) mycologists and come away with the impression that “mainstream” wild-mushroom enthusiasts are interested in just a few types. Morels, king boletes and chanterelles seem to lead the list. These are superb eating and not easy to confuse with harmful species. By contrast, “white flat top” mushrooms are unlikely to be choice and are easily confused with dangerous types. So they will be eaten only by the true experts or the very foolish. [/QUOTE] This is fairly true, although there are species of _Agaricus_ - horse mushrooms, wood mushrooms and ‘the prince’ being the members that spring to mind, but as others have noted, there are other species in this genus that are not good to eat, or are (non-fatally)poisonous. But the risk is the same anyway, whether you’re collecting the common ones or the esoteric delicacies; if you take the trouble to be very certain of the identification of whatever you’re collecting, you’ll be fine. If you don’t, mistakes are costly. BTW, death by poisoning from some fungi (notably the poisonous members of the genus _Amanita_\* is a particularly nasty way to go; typically consisting of violent, painful illness, a day or so of apparent recovery, then rapid decline and death. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/39 "2006-09-28T08:25:11Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] The toxin that causes botulism [/QUOTE] Botulism is caused by bacteria which release a characteristic toxin when they are destroyed. Consuming the toxin alone can cause poisining but not a case of botulism infection. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320/40 "2006-09-28T08:52:23Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] Botulism is caused by bacteria which release a characteristic toxin when they are destroyed. Consuming the toxin alone can cause poisining but not a case of botulism infection. [/QUOTE] Botulism _is_ the poisoning. Or at least one form is. Infectious botulism does not normally occur in adults. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-big-white-hand-sized-mushrooms-that-pop-up-in-your-front-yard-safe-to-eat/374320.md?page=3)