It's speculated that various hallucinogenic mushrooms were the legendary "ambrosia" of the gods, forbidden to mortals for their own good; that the feasts of Dionysus, divine half-brother of Hercules, were mushroom orgies rather than drinking bouts. Alexander the Great may have died of mushroom poisoning. The Greek dramatist Euripides lost his wife, daughter and two sons to the deadly Amanita. The Roman emperors Tiberius and Claudius are both said to have succumbed to mushroom poisoning. Pope Clement VII and France's Charles V were also victims of the fungi.
Commercial cultivation probably started in France during the reign of Louis the XIV. Ignorance about the growth and life cycle of mushrooms was widespread until the French botanist Marchant demonstrated, in 1678, that mushrooms grew from spawn, appearing on a lace-like structure, the mycelium, just beneath the surface of the soil. Market gardeners in Paris swiftly put theory into practice and transplanted the "roots" of the wild mushroom into a bed of horse manure and thus bred the ancestors of a remarkably successful product. In the 1890s, French scientists finally consolidated their long monopoly by developing a pasteurized spawn and, therefore, more dependable crops. One French cave contained 20 miles (32 km) of mushroom beds. American growers, who had first raised mushrooms in New York City and Long Island, adopted the French technique in the late 19th century. The U.S. mushroom industry started about 1891 in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, which is still the mushroom capital of the U.S.
The cultivated mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, is usually harvested young, either as a "button" mushroom, with pale pink gills, or as a "cup" mushroom, where the cap, or pileus, has partially opened. The mature, or "flat", mushroom has dark brown gills. Most modern growers use stable manure that has been machine-mixed with gypsum and cottonseed or barley, made rich with nitrogenous compounds. The compost is pasteurized by steaming and laid in a controlled environment to receive the spawn. A layer of "casing" soil then covers the spawn, which is left for about three weeks at 65°F (18°C), while the compost is regularly kept moist. Mushrooms appear after the first month and continue to yield crops for three or four months. One-third of a grower's crop will be sold fresh; one-third used for canning; and the remainder used for soup. Mycologists are mushroom foragers and experts; mycophaogists are mushroom eaters.
Poisonous mushrooms used to be called "toadstools", but this dates back to when people thought they could tell safe mushrooms from poisonous mushroom by folk methods now known to be old wives' tales. Poisonous mushrooms may or may not tarnish silverware; do not turn dark in a saltwater solution; and do not turn milky in vinegar. Whether a mushroom is easy or hard to peel has nothing to do with whether or not it's poisonous. Contrary to popular belief, there is no home test that can distinguish between edible and poisonous varieties. Some mushrooms are edible when fresh and young and become poisonous when old or hit by frost; some are poisonous in one part of the country and not in another. Some can be poisonous to animals and not to humans and vice versa. Only a trained mycologist can identify wild mushrooms; in France, for example, mushroom hunters can bring their finds to a pharmacist for identification free of charge. See also agaric, amanita, beefsteak fungus, black chanterelle, blewit, boletus, button mushroom, cep, chanterelle, cremini, cultivated mushroom, enoki, field mushroom, funghi, fungus, giant puffball mushroom, hen of the woods, horse mushroom, huitalacoche, kinoko, matsutake, morel, nameko mushroom, oyster mushroom, parasol mushroom, porcini, puffball mushroom, shiitake, straw mushroom, tree mushroom, wood ear.
From The Food Encyclopedia by Jacques Rolland and Carol Sherman
