Just saying, as its autumn now and if you’re driving along country roads and the woods, you see many parked cars that belong to people picking shrooms. You can only hope they know what they are doing.. and you’d hope there are places to have the pick checked. Availability may vary, however I know in Germany there’s seasonally available offices staffed with experts who can answer your questions and pinpoint those poisonous evil twins. If you go pick mushrooms, are these sorts of places available to you?
18 comments
In the UK, no.
When I lived in France, some pharmacies would tell you whether the fungus was safe to eat or not.
Nope, only my grandma that sometimes bites a tiny piece of a mushroom if she’s not sure about it, and then spit it out and tells if it’s good or not. xDD
She’s between 80-90 now so she has to know what she’s doing.
Yes.
Most municipalities have an expert who can be consulted. At least during the mushroom season their office will be open once or twice a week.
People who forage on a regular basis know what they can and can’t pick. My parents and grandparents are/were every autumn picking all sorts of stuff from the forest and knew exactly what they were doing.
I remember from school that we went with our class as well to the forest to learn about different mushrooms and berries – what can and what can’t be eaten.
There is no public service for checking is something edible or not, but plenty of books to read on the topic. Most learned it from school or parents anyway.
Pharmacists are usually trained on this.
Doesn’t mean that they’ll necessarily know though, especially since lots of them will never practice identifying mushrooms after finishing studying. But they should at least be able to recognize the most common ones in the area.
Italy, yes. The public healthcare system has an office for that in most cities.
That’s how we weed out the stupid one in society, if they eat mushrooms they don’t know, a old Swedish saying, “if he dies, he dies”.
Nah, but sadly only know about tourist or refuges that have eaten mushrooms and then died from it, most German people and Syrians last time I read something about it. Most Swedish people have a mushroom book, with them or at home to check if they are eatable. I just keep to chanterelles, they are easy to find and taste the best.
In Russia, your grandparents just take you for mushrooms and show you what you can and can’t pick. The golden rule: if you’re not sure, then don’t take this mushroom. As a rule, there are a couple of types of mushrooms that are easy to recognize: volnushki, svinushki, yellow boletus.
Yes. “Soppkontrollen” has booths in some popular areas. They are trained and check the mushrooms. I think they are volunteers.
It is also available as an mobile app.
Yes, pharmacists are trained and available to check your mushroom harvest.
Picking mushrooms in the wild is not legal in the Netherlands. They allow it when it’s under 250 gram, but technically it’s not legal.
Nope, generally you don’t pick anything unless you are 100% sure it’s edible.
Pharmacist, but often enough the Commune has someone that know the local mushrooms
Picking wild mushrooms is not legal in Flanders even though it does happen a lot. If caught the mushrooms will be confiscated. Forest rangers do not have the authority to issue fines, though. Aside from the obvious risk of poisoning yourself it’s also bad for the forest’s ecosystem.
I don’t think we have anything like that exactly, but we do have the [Jourhavande Biolog (”Biologist on Hold”)](https://www.nrm.se/faktaomnaturenochrymden/fragajourhavandebiolog.147.html) who is stationed at the Swedish National Museum of Natural History (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet) in Stockholm, whose job it is to answer all kinds of questions from the general public about animals, plants and mushrooms. So anyone can write to him and ask, and also include pictures of the mushroom. The current Biologist on Hold is named Didrik Vanhoenacker. He is a professor of ecology, and also frequently features in radio and television shows about nature.
Another great resource is the site [SvampGuiden (The Mushroom Guide)](http://svampguiden.com/information.asp), which is Sweden’s largest website and forum about mushrooms where you can ask questions and post pictures. It is run by a professional mycologist and ”mushroom consultant” who works at the Swedish Species Information Centre (ArtDatabanken), which is in turn part of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. There are a lot of other leading Swedish mushroom experts frequenting and aiding at the site as well.
This is the most German thing I ever heard!
Like this kind of service and organising.
Nope we have parents who know. And then sometimes we take a old book with pictures with us.
Usually we rely on more mushrooms savy friends.
I only know about my home town/province, there isn’t a public service specifically set up for this, but both the local mycological association and the University (at the mycology department of the agriculture engineering building) will help identifying any mushroom.
Rule number one of mushroom picking in Latvia: DO NOT PICK MUSHROOMS YOU DON’T RECOGNIZE. We are told this by parents, grandparents, teachers, media. Everyone.