Fungus epicures
The fungus-eaters of Britain, it is said, are even to-day merely a conspicuous coterie, while in America this particular sort of specialist is more generally an isolated "crank" who is compelled to "flock alone," contemplated with a certain awe by his less venturesome fellows, and otherwise variously considered, either with envy of his experience and scientific knowledge, or more probably as an irresponsible, who continually tempts Providence in his foolhardy experiments with poison.
Chemical constituents
But what a contrast do we find on the Continent in the appreciation of the fungus as an article of diet! In France, Germany, Russia, and Italy, for example, where the woods are scoured for the perennial crop, and where, through centuries of popular familiarity and tradition, the knowledge of its economic value has become the possession of the people, a most important possession to the poor peasant who, perhaps for weeks together, will taste no other animal food. I say "animal food" advisedly; for, gastronomically and chemically considered, the flesh of the mushroom has been proven to be almost identical with meat, and possesses the same nourishing properties. This animal affinity is further suggested in its physiological life, the fungus reversing the order of all other vegetation in imbibing oxygen and exhaling carbonic acid, after the manner of animals. It is not surprising, therefore, that the analogy should be still further emphasized by the discrimination of the palate, many kinds of fungi when cooked simulating the taste and consistency of animal food almost to the point of deception.
Popular distrust of fungi
But in America the fungus is under the ban, its great majority of harmless or even wholesome edible species having been brought into popular disrepute through the contamination, mostly, of a single small genus.
In the absence of special scientific knowledge, or, from our present point of view, its equivalent, popular familiarity, this general distrust of the whole fungus tribe may be, however, considered a beneficent prejudice. So deadly is the insidious, mysterious foe that lurks among the friendly species that it is well for humanity in general that the entire list of fungi should share its odium, else those "toadstool" fatalities, already alarmingly frequent, might become a serious feature in our tables of mortality.
Fungus food for all
But the prejudice is needlessly sweeping. A little so-called knowledge of fungi has often proven to be a "dangerous thing," it is true, but it is quite possible for any one of ordinary intelligence, rightly instructed, to master the discrimination of at least a few of the more common edible species, while being thoroughly equipped against the dangers of deadly varieties, whose identification is comparatively simple.
"Toadstool" and "mushroom"