Saturday, November 01, 2008

Mushrooms: delicacy to some, fungus to others

I don't like mushrooms. They are smelly. And they are fungus. Like the stuff between your toes. A lot of people do like mushrooms however. They love the smell. And the fungusness. I think they are just icky (the mushrooms, that is). Here is a visual illustration I made, with the help of a picture I nicked off teh internets and using my l33t photoshop skillz, which describes my perception of them.

yech, shrooms.

32 comments:

a traveller said...

I love mushrooms. C'est tout.

R said...

funguses. smelly funguses.

R said...

PS: goodgod what a rubbish comment.

a traveller said...

I like. On toast, in soup, on pizzas... I love 'em.

And i used to love the Enid Blyton tales which spoke of them as either stools for the elves when they had their midnight feasts or umbrellas for the fairies when it rained. :)

Good God, Chrome doesn't know Blyton.

R said...

I thought mushrooms and toadstools were different things forever :s Then I started differentiating based on non-poisonous vs. poisonous. I still see them as entirely different things - like tortoises and turtles, frogs and toads

a traveller said...

Yes, but how is a seven-year-old supposed to know they're different bhai? :P

R said...

they're NOT different bhai. That's the seven year old who made the incorrect differentiation

a traveller said...

Oh. So you were wrong?

R said...

I'm not really sure...

"Mushroom vs. toadstool

The relative sizes of the cap (pileus) and stalk (stipe) vary widely. Shown here is a species of Macrolepiota.

The terms "mushroom" and "toadstool" go back centuries and were never precisely defined, nor was there consensus on application.

The term "toadstool" was often, but not exclusively, applied to poisonous mushrooms or to those that have the classic umbrella-like cap-and-stem form. Between 1400 and 1600 A.D., the terms tadstoles, frogstooles, frogge stoles, tadstooles, tode stoles, toodys hatte, paddockstool, puddockstool, paddocstol, toadstoole, and paddockstooles sometimes were used synonymously with mushrom, mushrum, muscheron, mousheroms, mussheron, or musserouns.[3]

The term "mushroom" and its variations may have been derived from the French word mousseron in reference to moss (mousse). There may have been a direct connection to toads (in reference to poisonous properties) for toadstools. However, there is no clear-cut delineation between edible and poisonous fungi, so that a "mushroom" may be edible, poisonous, or unpalatable. The term "toadstool" is nowadays used in storytelling when referring to poisonous or suspect mushrooms. The classic example of a toadstool is Amanita muscaria."

a traveller said...

*sigh* Tell you what:

Mushroom: what i love to eat

Toadstool: what Enid Blyton described in her tales.

C'est tout.

The Seeker said...

I love mushrooms too. And I don't eat them whole - I eat the deformed leg first, then the spores, then the soft head.
Are you feeling nauseous yet?
Yum. I think I'll buy some.

Nice diagram by the way... very dramatic.

R said...

gaaaaah!!!

The Seeker said...

:D


As for mushroom/toadstool... I've always thought toadstools were either only the red ones with the dots or all the poisonous ones.

Anonymous said...

"Mushrooms: delicacy to some, fungus to others"
I belong to the latter group :p I never liked them... any kind... be it Agaricus, Chantarelle or any other kind...
Camembert is okay to a point, but it's not my favourite either...

R said...

Isn't Agaricus the one with the white dots on the red roof? Idunno their names. I don't refuse to eat them, but I'd just rather not.

I got really ew-ed out while doing the research for this minimalistic entry.

The Seeker said...

All this time I thought Camembert was made of milk.

a traveller said...

@Fin: I eat them that way too! :D Assuming the whole thing is there though... We usually mince them if we're making toast or soup.

Incidentally, isn't bread made of fungus too? Well, yeast, but that's a type of fungus right?

a traveller said...

And isn't Camembert a type of cheese? That's what Manger Bleu told me all those years ago. :s

The Seeker said...

^ Yeah, that's why I said I thought it was made of milk.

And :D really? I thought I was the only one to to eat them that way... my mother knows better than to mince all of them because I'll want some.

R said...

Mauger mon amie! Manger is a verb... Mauger was the guy's name. My book was vert though.

I thought Camembert was le fromage too... but I know zero about shrooms.

The Seeker said...

Funny how this is proving to be your most popular entry by the way.

R said...

shrooms also look like little faceless people with big brains and one thick leg. And spores.

R said...

I know! This is the sort of stuff I should write :D

The Seeker said...

You're paranoid :D

R said...

eat eat:

http://lamington.nrsm.uq.edu.au/images/fungi/fungi068.JPG

;) :D

a traveller said...

They actually look kinda like the aliens in Independence Day... at least, I've always thought so.

So is bread fungus or not?

The Seeker said...

They don't even look like faceless people... there goes your previous comment

a traveller said...

Those actually look really pretty. Kinda like sea shells.

R said...

eugh.

I can't find any gross pictures of bread or yeast so they are ineligible.

The Seeker said...

"Mmmmmm, making bread make your mouth water doesn't it? The smell of freshly baked bread as you walk into your house could anything be more perfect?

Then bring the thought of fungi into your head. Not so pleasant that is it?! But yes, fungi is a vital ingredient in the bread-making process.

Of course we don't really think of it as fungi, we know it as yeast when we're talking about bread. When I empty the packet of yeast into the bread machine I don't really give much thought to what it actually is (most probably because it is freeze-dried and doesn't even smell! Yeast' actually means one-celled fungus'."

It's also used in beer.

Anonymous said...

Agaricus (or "Champignon" in French and German) is the type you posted a picture of, I wasn't sure about the correct English term, so I substituted :p

Camembert is a cheese... one made with edible mold (= fungi)

and I guess it's also true that yeast can be classified as fungus too...

R said...

Bread's not got spores, and yeast doesn't look grotesque like mushrooms. Mouldy bread, now that's different. THAT is gross in a similar way to mushrooms. Same logic as camembert - which I haven't had.