Know the difference between edible and poisonous mushrooms

Mushrooms are so much more than toadstools from fairytales. As fungi, mushrooms are biologically distinct from any other food group. They have a unique nutrient profile and add a distinct flavour and texture to a variety of dishes.

The word mushroom is derived from the French word for fungi. Dating back to 1651, fungi became popular in Europe after being discovered in the vicinity of Paris. They were also consumed centuries ago in middle and South America. Finally, in 1707, the first controlled cultivation of edible fungi in the vegetable garden was completed and so the delicious mushroom was introduced to our diets.

Now every year, millions of mushrooms are cultivated worldwide. Since the first cultivation of mushrooms, many varieties have popped up around the world. Ranging from edible, poisonous and medicinal, it’s important to know your way around the mushroom garden.

Edible mushrooms:

Starting with edible varieties, there are so many to choose from to add flavour to your dinners. The white button mushroom is one of the most commonly grown mushrooms throughout the world. It’s eaten by millions of people every day and with a little culinary spice, it’s anything but boring. The cap of this mushroom spans three to 16 centimetre, while the stem is two to eight centimetre long.

White in colour, this type of mushroom often has brownish bruising.

Another popular mushroom is the Oyster mushroom. One of the first things you should look for when trying to identify this mushroom is the presence of decurrent gills.

These gills are attached to and run directly down the stem. These guys are white to light brown and often grow in a shelf-like formation with overlapping clusters.

Porcini mushrooms are a famous, and delicious, addition to Italian dishes owing to their strong nutty flavour. As the Porcini matures, its cap can grow up to 30 centimetre in diameter and then flattens out.

The reddish-brown cap darkens with age and fades to white along the cap margin. The stem is club-shaped or bulging in the middle.

Another tasty fungi is the field mushroom, which has a white cap and on occasion may have fine scales. The stem grows three to 10 centimetre tall and is predominately white, bearing a single thin ring. Be careful when munching on this mildly flavoured mushroom when it begins to show signs of yellow bruising. This bruising can cause the fungi to become somewhat toxic and inedible.

The soft, corky and flat Reishi mushrooms are among the oldest medicinal mushrooms known. Appearing to look like it has been red-varnished, the cap features an underside of white pores containing fine brown spores. The enchanting reishi grows at the base and stumps of deciduous trees to form a picturesque storybook scene.

With such recognised herbal healing powers, it is nice to know that the reishi mushroom is also an incredibly easy mushroom to grow.

The final garden favourite of our edible mushroom range is the Shiitake. What comes to mind when you think of these tasty mushrooms is the health benefits, as well as your favourite Chinese restaurant meals. Shiitake begin their lives with dark brown to black caps, which become lighter brown and more convex with age.

The undersides exhibit white gills that do not attach to the stem. The stem is smooth, fibrous and light brown with no ring. The shiitake mushroom also has many medicinal properties to assist in getting your body into a great condition. It supports your immune system, destroys cancer cells and helps with heart health.

Poisonous mushrooms:

Although there are so many delicious mushrooms in the wild that you can pick and eat, there are many poisonous ones to stay away from. By far the biggest culprit is the Amanita phalloides, or the death cap mushroom, which occurs throughout South Africa.

Ingesting it is extremely dangerous as this fungi accounts for 90 per cent of all fatal mushroom poisonings. The toxins from this mushroom attack your liver and kidneys. Look out for a pale yellow to a light-olive cap, which grows from five to 15 centimetre in diameter. The gills are white and the spore print is also white. It’s definitely not to be snacked on.

The Copper Trumpet, also commonly known as the Jack-o’-lantern mushroom is orange to yellow and yes, it is poisonous.

Although enchanting with its large, funnel shape and gills that are bioluminescent, which glow in the dark, this mushroom is filled with a compound called luciferin. Rather observe its beauty than try and have this fungus for lunch.

The False Parasol mushroom is the final fungi. It has a convex cap at full maturity, that grows from five to 40 centimetre in diameter.

The gills are white when young and turn green with age. The mushroom then turns a dingy red when bruised. The stem grows from five to 25 centimetre tall and one to four centimetre in diameter. It is highly poisonous, producing severe gastrointestinal symptoms of vomiting and diarrhoea.