Mushroom

HISTORY

Before trees were common, the Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms

In various ancient civilization throughout the world including Russia, China, Greece, Egypt, Mexico and Latin America, mushroom rituals were practiced. Many believed that mushrooms had properties that could produce super- human strength, help in finding lost objects and leading the soul to the realm of the gods

The delicious flavor of mushrooms intrigued one Egyptian pharaoh so much that he he decreed that they are food for royalty and that no commoner could ever touch them. This assured himself the entire supply of mushrooms.

Roman Emperor Claudius, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, and Pope Clement VII all died of mushroom poisoning.

The toxic mushroom Amanita muscaria, By MichaelMaggs - Wikipedia

In his memoirs, Voltaire wrote that Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI died on October 20, 1740 after "eating mushrooms, which brought on an apoplexy, and this plate of mushrooms changed the destiny of Europe." It appears that his death in 1740 was caused by eating a dish of death caps, the most dangerous of all fungi, which superficially resemble field mushrooms. A single bite can be deadly.

All button mushrooms used to be brown until 1926, when a mushroom farmer in Pennsylvania found a cluster of white buttons growing in his beds, which he cloned and began selling as a new variety.

MORPHOLOGY 

A mushroom is not a vegetable – it is a fungi

Mushrooms differ from other plants in that they contain no chlorophyll. Because of this, some would argue that they are not plants at all.

Mushrooms are more closely related to humans than they are to vegetables.

More than 30 species of mushroom glow in the dark.

The Honey mushroom of the species Armillaria ostoyae in the Blue Mountains of Oregon is believed to be the largest organism in the world and has an area of almost four square miles.

Armillaria ostoyae. By W.J.Pilsak at the German language Wikipedia,

Chorioactis Geaster, an extremely rare mushroom, is only found in two places—Texas and Japan—over 6,000 miles apart!

Some mushrooms contain more potassium than bananas.

Some mushrooms are carnivorous. They eat spiders and roundworms.

There are species of mushrooms that feed off of gamma radiation, and some are blooming in Chernobyl, “eating” the radiation.

Mushrooms have their own immune system.

Fairy rings, i.e. mushrooms growing in a circle, are an actual natural occurrence, caused by mushroom mycelia growing out from the center and exhausting nutrients on the inside of the circle.

HUMAN USE

A person who studies mushrooms and fungi is a mycologist. The Italian mycologist Bruno Cetto described 2,147 types of mushroom.

Bruno Cetto was born on April 21, Trento, Italy in 1921. He studied engineering at the University of Bologna, but his passion for mushrooms led him to become a mycologist. He published his first book on mushrooms in 1948, and his seven-volume series, I Funghi dal Vero, was published between 1964 and 1992. This series is considered to be one of the most comprehensive and authoritative works on mushrooms in the world.

Cetto was also a passionate advocate for mushroom education. He founded the Mycological Institute of Trento in 1973, and he gave lectures and workshops on mushrooms all over the world. He died in 1991, but his legacy continues to inspire mushroom enthusiasts around the world.

Bruno Cetto

A mushroom-eater is a mycophagist, fear of mushrooms is mycophobia and a mushroom-lover is a mycophile.

Pharmacists in France have been trained in mycology, so foragers take the mushrooms they have gathered to their pharmacist where, free of charge, the mushrooms are checked for toxicity.

Mushrooms are used extensively in cooking, in many cuisines (notably Chinese, European, Japanese and Korean). Though neither meat nor vegetable, mushrooms are known as the "meat" of the vegetable world.

There is a mushroom that grows in the wild and tastes like fried chicken - it's name is Laetiporus.

The first book on cultivating mushrooms was written by William Falconer. Mushrooms : How to Grow Them was published in 1891.

In 2008 a packed Ryanair plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Germany after a jar of mushrooms leaked onto a passenger from an overhead locker and triggered a severe allergic reaction.

The mushrooms in Mario games are based on a real species called Amanita Muscaria that, when eaten, make people feel like they're growing.

The Mushroom Museum in Zagreb, Croatia displays over 700 species of mushroom.

China produces around 65 per cent of the world's edible mushrooms.

Over half of all mushrooms consumed in the US are grown in Kennett Township, a small town in Pennsylvania

Sources Venere.com, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce