Our Edible Toadstools and Mushrooms and How to Distinguish Them / A Selection of Thirty Native Food Varieties Easily Recognizable by their Marked Individualities, with Simple Rules for the Identification of Poisonous Species

by W. Hamilton Gibson

Dr. Badham's recommendation, among my list of recipes, is worth a trial for the sake of novelty, if nothing more. The hollow shape of our Morel thus suggests a variation on the conventional methods of cooking.

The color of the Morel in its prime is grayish-green, occasionally brownish. It is most commonly found in orchards, and is said to favor spots where charcoal or cinders have been thrown.

HELVELLA

Helvella crispa

Specific characters

One of the most strikingly individual of all the mushrooms, and one which could not possibly be confounded with any other kind, is the example pictured in [Plate 33]. With this mere portrait as our guide, we might safely classify our specimen—at least, as to its genus; and inasmuch as no one of the group is poisonous, and all are edible with varying degrees of esculence, we can make no mistake even in our ventures as amateur mycophagists. When, therefore, we find a fungus with such a peculiar, irregularly fluted and hollowed stem, itself hollow within, or tubular, and surmounted with a rather thin, flexible, wavy cap, resembling our illustration, we may know that we have a specimen of Helvella. If this example happens to be creamy above and ochre-colored beneath, it is the Helvella crispa of our Plate. The specimen here shown is somewhat larger than in nature. Other species are differently formed and colored, one of them having the cap dark ash-colored or even black. There are three species occasionally met with, of which the first, H. crispa, is the most common and perhaps the most delectable.

Dried mushrooms

The peculiar texture of these mushrooms permits of their ready desiccation, and in Britain and on the Continent they are commonly strung on strings and dried for future use, in which condition they have been compared to dried "wash-leather" in texture. The famous aristocratic Morel (Morchella esculenta), already described, so prized as food in Europe, and to which the Helvella is closely allied, has a similar irregular, pitted, hollowed, and netted surface over its entire conical or globular gray cap, and the same texture. Most competent judges claim that the delicious Morel possesses no advantages over the more plebeian Helvella as a delicacy for the table. The flavor is identical, and the other qualities of the two mushrooms make them equally desirable.

The readiness with which they may be dried, and thus kept indefinitely, is another distinct advantage which the Morels and Helvellas possess over the ordinary gilled Agarics, many of which must be gathered in their young prime and immediately eaten.