Mapleton Preserve offers a Mushroom Meander with mycologist Gelnn Freeman.
By Adam Grybowski
WHEN the Poison Control Center in Newark has a case of mushroom poisoning, mycologist Glenn Freeman is called. Probably the two most common calls Mr. Freeman receives are about children and dogs having ingested a poisonous mushroom in the yard.
Eating wild mushrooms can be risky, even when the act is deliberate. There are more than 3,000 species of mushrooms in New Jersey and 12,000 in the United States. About 250 of them are known to be edible and another 250 of them are known to be poisonous.
Neither edible nor toxic mushrooms can be identified by a single trait. Many species are only distinguishable through microscopic features.
People who collect wild mushrooms to eat are called mycophagists. Mr. Freeman encourages them to consult a mushroom expert, not to just pick up a field guide and match the picture with what’s in the field.
The maxims mycophagists repeat carry one message: Eating wild mushrooms can be hazardous to your health.
"If in doubt, throw it out," they say.
"There are old mushroom hunters and there are bold mushroom hunters," another saying goes, "but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters."
"All mushrooms are edible, but some are edible just once," says Mr. Freeman, the former president of the New Jersey Mycological Association. He’s leading an Oct. 6 exploration of Kingston’s Mapleton Preserve to search for wild mushrooms.
Mr. Freeman mowed lawns between college and graduate school. He worked with a Polish man who collected mushrooms on the job to take home and eat. The experience drew him into the field of mycology. He earned his doctorate in the subject from the University of Tennessee and is now the supervisor for the New Jersey State Department of Agriculture Plant Pest and Disease Laboratory.
Mushroom affinity may be a matter of experience, but Mr. Freeman believes it’s also cultural.
"Americans are by and large fearful of mushrooms," he says. "They don’t want to touch them let alone eat them. Mushrooms aren’t part of our culture. We’re leery of them because we haven’t grown up collecting them with our relatives."
Collecting wild mushrooms is a normal experience for many immigrants, and it has proven a problem when they misidentify mushrooms in this country. They are commonly victims of mushroom poisoning. The edible paddy-straw mushroom (volvariella vovacea) that grows in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam resembles an American mushroom called the Death Cap (amanita phalloides). Eating two or three grams of a Death Cap can result in serious liver or kidney damage and is potentially fatal.
Once a mushroom has been determined safe to eat, a finer distinction is left to make: does it taste good? Although he says wild mushrooms have a distinctive flavor, Mr. Freeman admits he couldn’t distinguish by taste a wild mushroom from one grown commercially.
Buying mushrooms in the grocery store may be easier than collecting them yourself but, like fishing and gardening, the appeal of hunting mushrooms is broader than simply scoring a snack. "The people who go out to an event like this get the satisfaction of going out in nature," Mr. Freeman says, "and if they get something they can eat, that’s satisfying too."
Mr. Freeman says interest in wild mushrooms is growing in the culinary world and that, overall, New Jersey is a great place to collect them, depending on the weather. Mr. Freeman collected so many chanterelles last year he didn’t know what to do with them all. Like other mushrooms, chanterelles need moisture to grow. Mr. Freeman found only a few this year, though they’re usually common in New Jersey.
Scarcity and competition causes some mycophagists to hoard their knowledge of spots that are abundant with mushrooms. It’s nothing compared to the "mushroom wars" out West, Mr. Freeman says, where the amount of money at stake for wild mushrooms has caused outbreaks of violence.
Compared to such a place, New Jersey is a rather tame state for mushroom lovers. The New Jersey Mycological Association is the only state repositary for mushroom knowledge, according to Mr. Freeman. The non-profit organization aims to provide mushroom knowledge to those who seek it.
And with wild mushrooms, knowledge is the difference between a full stomach and a sick one.
Mr. Freeman once knew a mycophagist who tested the toxicity of an unidentified mushroom by sautéing its cap with his eggs for breakfast. He ate it and felt fine, so he did it again the next day. Fine again. On the third day he ate a bunch of the unidentified mushrooms and reported the worst headache of his life. It lasted six hours.
Mapletown Preserve Mushroom Meander with Glenn Freeman will take place Oct. 6, 10 a.m., at the D & R Canal State Park Kingston Office/Mapleton Preserve, 145 Mapleton Road, Kingston. Admission is free; (609) 683-0483; www.njmyco.org
Adam Grybowski