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This is not remotely what the "common knowledge" about mushroom foraging is in Eastern Europe. There is a "funny" story in Bulgaria how the most famous mushroom

This is not remotely what the "common knowledge" about mushroom foraging is in Eastern Europe. There is a "funny" story in Bulgaria how the most famous mushroom foraging expert in Bulgaria a few decades ago died because he made a mistake when foraging. Plenty of edible mushrooms are just "twins" of poisonous mushrooms, using animal's knowledge to not eat them, without expending the metabolic cost to actually produce poison.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Plenty of edible mushrooms are just "twins" of poisonous mushrooms These are also living, evolving organisms. There will be mutants who knock back on a poisonous gene.
oblak 3y ago
Your counter example is one guy dying from poisoning, in a country that does a lot of shroom foraging (берем гъби у гората). The Russia rocket expert was likely killed.
- krastanov 3y ago
  You are reading too much in what I said. Of course weird things are happening in an unstable dictatorship like Russia and this guy might have been assassinated for one reason or another. That does not mean it is not nice to give people context about the culture in that end of the world though.
  - throw_pm23 3y ago
    I think you make it sound more exotic than it is. People pick mushrooms around the world. Slightly more common in SE-Europe, a bit less so than a few decades ago. People tend to stick to the 1-2 species they know best, poisonings are extremely rare.
    - krastanov 3y ago
      Fair point, but I am surprised to hear that. My US friends (New England) have been extremely surprised when they hear that foraging for mushrooms is common where I come from (on the rare occasions when this comes up).
      - one_level_deep2 3y ago
        It is also pretty common in parts of the US. They probably don't know about that either. I know people who go morel hunting every spring in the midwest (Iowa and Illinois, specifically). https://www.thegreatmorel.com/regional-morels-midwest-region/#:~:text=Those%20in%20the%20northern%20parts,a%20very%20popular%20spring%20pastime https://www.thegreatmorel.com/regional-morels-midwest-region....
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> There is a "funny" story in Bulgaria how the most famous mushroom foraging expert in Bulgaria a few decades ago died because he made a mistake when foraging. Do you have a citation or evidence for this? I ask because a while ago another commenter on HN said that the president of a mushroom society in Boston died from the same thing, and when I looked and searched I could find no mentions of this. Without additional evidence I'm putting all claims of "Mushroom expert does from mushroom misidentification!" into the "old wives tale/bullshit bucket". These types of stories just seem to be the ones that people love to talk about and share, even if they originate as a falsehood. Again, not saying it's not possible, but I am saying without a reasonable citation I'm discounting it as BS.
- vmladenov 3y ago
  > Do you have a citation or evidence for this? If I've understood the previous commenter correctly, he's talking about a виц (comes from German witz, cognate of wit in English) which is a funny story joke that spreads by word of mouth. Here is the one in question: https://kvo.bg/vicove/vicOTJK1I/vapros-koi-sa-poslednite-dumi-na https://kvo.bg/vicove/vicOTJK1I/vapros-koi-sa-poslednite-dum... Roughly: > Q: What were the last words of the mushroom forager? > A: I hadn't tried that kind until now!
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    Yeah, if I understand your point and link: this is not something that actually happened, it's just a joke, but after enough retellings for some reason people think that it is real.
    - vmladenov 3y ago
      > after enough retellings for some reason people think that it is real I do not think anyone thinks it's real; you might be getting caught up by the word "story", just some dark Balkan humor.
      - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
scotty79 3y ago
To become an expert you have to be a little bit adventurous. Average forager knows and gathers maybe 10 species of mushrooms that are hardest to mistake for anything else and leaves alone anything that looks just a little bit different.
smsm42 3y ago
It is true that there are "twins" but they are not the commonly foraged ones. Common ones are quite easily distinguished from the poisonous ones, and those that have bad twins, the twins also taste pretty bad (extremely bitter, etc.) If you don't try to eat every possible edible mushroom as a sport but stick to the most easily recognized ones you'll be fine.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Plenty of edible mushrooms are just "twins" of poisonous mushrooms These are also living, evolving organisms. There will be mutants who knock back on a poisonous gene.

oblak 3y ago

Your counter example is one guy dying from poisoning, in a country that does a lot of shroom foraging (берем гъби у гората). The Russia rocket expert was likely killed.

krastanov 3y ago
You are reading too much in what I said. Of course weird things are happening in an unstable dictatorship like Russia and this guy might have been assassinated for one reason or another. That does not mean it is not nice to give people context about the culture in that end of the world though.
- throw_pm23 3y ago
  I think you make it sound more exotic than it is. People pick mushrooms around the world. Slightly more common in SE-Europe, a bit less so than a few decades ago. People tend to stick to the 1-2 species they know best, poisonings are extremely rare.
  - krastanov 3y ago
    Fair point, but I am surprised to hear that. My US friends (New England) have been extremely surprised when they hear that foraging for mushrooms is common where I come from (on the rare occasions when this comes up).
    - one_level_deep2 3y ago
      It is also pretty common in parts of the US. They probably don't know about that either. I know people who go morel hunting every spring in the midwest (Iowa and Illinois, specifically). https://www.thegreatmorel.com/regional-morels-midwest-region/#:~:text=Those%20in%20the%20northern%20parts,a%20very%20popular%20spring%20pastime https://www.thegreatmorel.com/regional-morels-midwest-region....

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

> There is a "funny" story in Bulgaria how the most famous mushroom foraging expert in Bulgaria a few decades ago died because he made a mistake when foraging. Do you have a citation or evidence for this? I ask because a while ago another commenter on HN said that the president of a mushroom society in Boston died from the same thing, and when I looked and searched I could find no mentions of this. Without additional evidence I'm putting all claims of "Mushroom expert does from mushroom misidentification!" into the "old wives tale/bullshit bucket". These types of stories just seem to be the ones that people love to talk about and share, even if they originate as a falsehood. Again, not saying it's not possible, but I am saying without a reasonable citation I'm discounting it as BS.

vmladenov 3y ago
> Do you have a citation or evidence for this? If I've understood the previous commenter correctly, he's talking about a виц (comes from German witz, cognate of wit in English) which is a funny story joke that spreads by word of mouth. Here is the one in question: https://kvo.bg/vicove/vicOTJK1I/vapros-koi-sa-poslednite-dumi-na https://kvo.bg/vicove/vicOTJK1I/vapros-koi-sa-poslednite-dum... Roughly: > Q: What were the last words of the mushroom forager? > A: I hadn't tried that kind until now!
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Yeah, if I understand your point and link: this is not something that actually happened, it's just a joke, but after enough retellings for some reason people think that it is real.
  - vmladenov 3y ago
    > after enough retellings for some reason people think that it is real I do not think anyone thinks it's real; you might be getting caught up by the word "story", just some dark Balkan humor.
    - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

scotty79 3y ago

To become an expert you have to be a little bit adventurous. Average forager knows and gathers maybe 10 species of mushrooms that are hardest to mistake for anything else and leaves alone anything that looks just a little bit different.

smsm42 3y ago

It is true that there are "twins" but they are not the commonly foraged ones. Common ones are quite easily distinguished from the poisonous ones, and those that have bad twins, the twins also taste pretty bad (extremely bitter, etc.) If you don't try to eat every possible edible mushroom as a sport but stick to the most easily recognized ones you'll be fine.