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 - W. Hamilton Gibson

Mushrooms thus treated seem to retain their aroma; in Procerus, Clavaria, Morel, Helvella, and "Fairy-ring" being intensified above that of their moist condition and most appetizing.

The desiccated specimens should be kept in a dry place, with good circulation of air, or enclosed in hermetically sealed tin boxes; in the latter case being occasionally examined to insure against mould by possible absorption of moisture.

When desired for use they are simply soaked in tepid water, which, by gradual absorption, causes the specimens occasionally to assume almost their original dimensions and juicy character, when they should be treated as recommended for the fresh mushrooms.

For the benefit of the vegetarian, or the curiously or experimentally inclined, I append a few suggestions apropos of a menu à la mode, in which the fungus might be employed with good effect as a rival to the familiar established prandial delights. Each selection is numbered with reference to its particular descriptive or suggestive paragraph in the preceding pages of the chapter.

A feast based upon these recommendations, re-enforced with appropriate adjuncts—the "mother"-born vinegar, the fungus-leavened loaf, the fungus-foaming beaker—might cumulatively prove a persuasive plea for the creed of vegetarianism.

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