Many refugees from Syria got poisoned by mushrooms because a common edible Syrian mushroom looks very much like a poisonous German mushroom.
Happens to some SE Asians in North America too, because the edible straw mushroom from SE Asia resembles one here called “death cap”. Amanita phalloides. What’s fucked up is right before it kills you your symptoms actually improve, so people get discharged from the hospital and think they are going to be ok. I forage mushrooms but I stay away from white gilled mushrooms completely.
Yeah I had my yard full of destroying angels last summer, when they first showed up I was all “sweet! Mushrooms!” Because they look real similar to agaricus. But then I saw the white gills, and was all :(.
And I made sure to tell my kids not to mess with them and why.
I never thought about this being possible and now I can’t help but laugh at how deceptive nature is.
Just follow standard survival advice. Don’t forage for mushrooms. Starving to death is better than poisoning yourself and starving to death.
Even some of the ones that are edible still secretly want to kill you. From the Wikipedia entry for “chicken of the woods”:
In some cases eating the mushroom "causes mild reactions … for example, “swollen lips” or in rare cases “nausea, vomiting, dizziness and disorientation” to those who are sensitive. This is believed to be due to a number of factors that include allergies to the mushroom’s protein or toxins which are only somewhat stable at high temperatures.
I’ll eat portabellos if they come on pasta or pizza (though I’ve started taking them off the latter because they turn to rubber in the microwave) but I sure as hell am not going out of my way to order any dish that features them (mushrooms) as the main protein.
There are over 400 spp of mushroom in my area, but only 23 or so are edible. I’ll pass.
