French mushrooms poisoned my friend - learn to be careful

The champignon ‘season’ in France lasts almost all year, with different varieties maturing at different times according to their natural cycle and where you are. 

Typically, the season starts with morilles (morels) in late spring and progresses to girolles (orange trumpet-shaped chanterelle mushrooms) in June through to autumn. 

The autumn rush starts in September when bulbous cèpes become available. 

These are followed in October/November by such delicacies as pied-de-mouton mushrooms (also known as hedgehog mushrooms because they have spines instead of gills), the alarmingly named trompettes de la mort (which are not deadly, and superb with game), and – in the depths of winter – les truffes (truffles), about which one could write a book. 

There are many more unusual ones which expert foragers will gather, plus supermarket varieties grown commercially all year round, which may not be indigenous to France.

In the early years of our French adventure I used to forage for mushrooms on our land and would regularly find cèpes and field mushrooms. 

It is important that you do not trespass onto other people’s property while gathering fungi – especially for something as prized as cèpes. 

You must cut them cleanly at the base rather than pulling them up to leave the mycelia – or network of mushroom ‘roots’ beneath the soil – undisturbed. 

This enables the fruiting bodies to grow again in the future. 

On one particular mushroom foray I broke a cardinal rule and subsequently poisoned a friend. 

I had been gathering field mushrooms when I spotted another patch elsewhere, picked a big one and added it to my basket. 

Next, I went to the pharmacy and asked them to check I had not picked anything toxic. 

The pharmacist looked at one or two of the mushrooms in my basket and confirmed they were edible, so I kept half of them and gave the other half to my friends. 

After eating them, one of my friends was violently sick. 

I was mortified, of course, and am so grateful that they forgave me. 

I went back to the patch where the final, big mushroom had been picked and had a closer look. 

These were not, in fact, field mushrooms, but something similar called (in English) “yellow stainers”. 

When you press the cap between two fingers the flesh turns a chrome yellow colour. 

They are not lethal – but they can make you ill. 

The moral here is always keep fungi from different clumps in separate containers so they can be independently identified and do not cross-contaminate. 

A few weeks later we were fortunate enough to visit a local display of French fungi. 

I was shocked to see how similar deadly mushrooms can be to some edible species. 

You cannot afford to make a mistake. 

Unless you really know what you are doing, buy your champignons from a market stall – sellers should be authorised and their crops inspected by licensed experts.