"Well, my good friend, it's a great pity, then, that you have not learned something about toadstools as well as mushrooms, for you might have saved many a butcher's bill, and may in the future if you will only take my word that this much-abused specimen is as truly a mushroom as your pink-gilled peeler, and to my mind far more delicious."
"What! Do you mean to tell me thet you have reely eaten 'em?"
"Yes, indeed; often. Why, just look at its clean, shaggy cap, its creamy white or pink gills underneath; take a sniff of its pleasant aroma; and here! just taste a little piece—it's as sweet as a nut!" I conclude, offering him the white morsel.
"Not much! I'll make my will first, thank'ee! You let me see ye eat a mess of 'em, and if the coroner don't get ye, p'r'aps I'll try on't."
"Toadstool" prejudice
Experiences similar to this one are frequent in the career of every mycophagist, and serve to illustrate the pity and solicitude which he awakens among his fellow-mortals, as well as to emphasize the prevalent superstitions regarding the comparative virtues of the mushroom and toadstool—a prejudice which, by-the-way, in the absence of available popular literature on the subject, and the actual dangers which encompass their popular distinction, is a most beneficent public safeguard.
Popular tests and superstitions
The mushroom which "he can tell" is generally the Agaricus campestris, or one of its several varieties; and knowing this alone, and tempted by no other, this sort of village oracle escapes the fate which often awaits another class, who are not thus conservative, and who extend their definition of mushroom (a word supposed to be synonymous with "edible"), and this mainly through the indorsement of certain so-called infallible tests handed down to them from their forefathers, and by which the esculent varieties may be distinguished from the poisonous. By these so-called "tests" or "proofs" the identification of certain species is gradually acquired. The rural fungus epicure now "knows them by sight," or perhaps has received his information second-hand, and makes his selection without hesitation, with what success may be judged from the incident in my own experience already noted—one which, knowing as I did the frequency and confidence with which my country friend sampled the fungi at his table, filled me with consternation and anxiety for his future.
"How, then, shall we distinguish a mushroom from a toadstool?"
There is no way of distinguishing them, for they are the same.