Poisoned!

          One fall [years ago] I attended a Sierra Club leadership retreat at a cabin on Diamond Lake. After a late meeting Saturday night, I got up early the next morning for a solitary walk around the lake. I came back to the cabin refreshed and revitalized after my vigorous walk, but our hostess met me at the door bewailing my absence. I had missed the mushrooms, she said. John had picked a bag of suillus brevipes, sautéed them, and offered a taste to everyone. Doris was eloquent in her description of the aroma, the visual beauty, the tasty pleasure of these mushrooms.

Unknown variety
(Red Buttes Wilderness)

          I was not unfamiliar with such aureate apostrophes to the wild mushroom. Years ago I went mushrooming with a French friend whose ecstasy over wild mushrooms also knew no bounds. He would leap from one clump to another, examining with the botanist's discernment, the hobbyist's enthusiasm, and the gourmet's bliss each species of edible fungus. In France, he told me, the autumn woods are filled with jealous stalkers of these wild delicacies. Oregon's autumn woods are crowded with mushrooms, but in France each is a treasure, hard-won and jealously prized. It almost wasn't fun, François said, to have so many—too much like work. I trotted along behind hm, dutifully filling my bag but lacking the true spirit of the hunt. Because, not to spoil his fun, I was withholding from him, as I did from Doris at Diamond Lake, my previous experience with wild mushrooms.

Another mushroom
of the Siskiyou Mountains

          I had been invited to dinner with friends in Ashland. He who was cooking dinner was not only a good cook but a good botanist as well, the sort who tells you the Latin names of all the plants you find on your walks together. You are enchanted with the delicate beauty of the starflower, and he says, "Yes. Trientalis latifolia." You say, "Look how purple and gold the shooting stars are in that spot of sunshine!" and he says, "Dodecatheon pulchellum." It does at least make you feel comfortable about his knowledge of mushrooms—and I do want to feel comfortable about the cook's knowledge of mushrooms if I'm going to be eating them with him.

          So he cheerfully cooked his mushrooms—the common shaggy mane to me, coprinus comatus to him—while the rest of us, his guests, relaxed in the living room with our glasses of wine, letting the enticing smells tickle our palates as we waited for his gourmet's treat. It was served with a flourish and was delicious. Like the other guests, I heaped praises upon the chef-botanist's deserving shoulders.

Emerging mushrooms
in Siskiyou Mountains

          After dinner, replete and satisfied, we retired to the living room. In the middle of a light and lively conversation, I suddenly thought, "I had better leave right now because I am going to be very sick." I didn't even make it to the door before I became, indeed, very sick, vomiting with enormous, forceful heaves, vomiting so hard I couldn't move to the bathroom. My body was evacuating the poison out both ends, my alimentary system doing everything it could to rid the body of what was trying to kill it. At least, so I thought, and so it might have been if my rejection mechanism hadn't been so strong. I was so sick it wouldn't have mattered to me if I had died. I would simply have passed into oblivion without thinking about my baby, my home, those I loved, or anything else having to do with life. Being sick was the only reality I knew. I was sick for hours. When the elimination spells eased, my friends helped me out of my clothes and into the bathtub. I stayed the night at their house and woke up the next morning shaky but alive.

          I was puzzled why I had been poisoned. No one else at the dinner party had gotten sick, though we had all eaten the same mushrooms, so I could hardly blame the botanist for getting his species mixed up. Researching the problem, I found that there is a relative of the shaggy mane mushroom which is highly poisonous in combination with alcohol. In this case, it must have been the shaggy mane itself, combined with a glass of wine and my own personal chemistry, that had poisoned me. If mushroom poisoning is a matter of personal chemistry, who can trust the books? Most people, maybe, but not I. Doris and François can rave about wild mushrooms, and they can have all they want. When it comes to wild mushrooms, I'm well satisfied with a vicarious enjoyment of their experience, no matter how safe they tell me those mushrooms are.

Next week: "Emma Lou and Fried Apple Pies"
(There are no recipes for wild mushrooms because, of course, I never cook with them.)