I just wrote this for a seperate thread, but then found this one! I'll keep it in here! YEAH FOR MUSHROOMS, the magical, the yummy, and the deadly. They're all beautiful!
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AMANITA MUSCARIA
A common and legal (yes, 100% legal) hallucinogenic mushroom that grows in most temperate regions of the world. It's usually found at the base of conifers, as it lives off the live roots of the tree, sometimes birch and oak too. It's usually the very common red stool with white warts on top, or the Mario mushroom, you see growing in yards. It has a larger season out on the Pacific coast from spring to fall, but east of the Rockies, it tends to be orange and yellow and appear in the late summer until the first frost. The variant found in Maine is called formosa (Amanita Muscaria var. Formosa) and tends to be a pale yellow to much brighter yellow cap, with white stalk. On the stalk you can see this little white skirt hanging from it. You also want to dig it up from the bulb. Whole thing is edible and usable.
Unlike psilocybin mushrooms, the experience is considered much more spiritual by many as it is excellent for meditation and lucid dreaming, as it tends to make people feel tired.
One must prepare it correctly, as eaten raw it can make one very sick stomach wise. Controlled heat (roughly 190 degrees F at 30 minutes tends to work great) causes a chemical conversion process in the mushroom and makes it safe to eat plus much more hallucinogenic.
Doses range from 8 to over 20 grams, with varying effects, but people usually take lose doses around 1-2 grams, sometimes everyday as it's considered great for seasonal depression. If one doesn't dry it, it is absolutely excellent cooked. I tend to sautee the mushrooms rather lightly (very little heat) in olive oil for ten minutes with some onions then throw them into a tomato sauce and let that sit for about a half hour cooking at a very light simmer (water boils at 212 degrees F remember, 190 is your target). One can also boil a few times over, specifcally five minutes each time up to three times, while replacing the water each time to complete detoxify the mushroom to simply enjoy it's wonderful and unique flavor.
Researchers have hypothesized that the Amanita Muscaria mushroom is the ancient Soma described in the Vedas. Siberian shamans have known to widely use this mushroom in religious practices and ceremonies. The 'lesser' people would drink the **** of the shamans as the body doesn't process most of the chemical, and sometimes the imbiber is even more intoxicated than the shaman.
Anyways, I found over 200 grams (when it's dried) today in my friend's front yard. They've been sitting in the sun for a couple days so they are just past the point where they are perfect to eat cooked, still possible, but I am going to dry them and grind them up into a powder. You then can make a tea with them which is considered by some to be the best and most efficient way (but you lose the flavor as the sacrifice). Enjoy the pics!
PLEASE NOTE: This for the most part is purely informational. Picking wild mushrooms is extremely dangerous if one doesn't no what they are doing. A field guide is highly recommended (lots of good info online though). I have spent over three years hunting edible and hallucinogenic mushroom with great success. I've clocked in just around 200 hundred hours hunting but also probably around thirty hours of reading on the subject. There is a very large amount of information out there, and I highly recommend you do a fair share of research before even considering to ingest a wild mushroom. Shroomery.org is a great source for info, discussion, and professional identification.
Tomorrow, I'll post some pictures of other mushrooms I find hunting, mainly the edible ones I get such as Chicken of the Woods (Tastes just like chicken! So good!).
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Amanita flacovinia. (This was one of my center piece pictures for an art exhibit I did on Maine fungi this fall) A somewhat close look alike but definitely can tell the difference upon close inspection. This has no skirt above the bulb, but does have the partial veil half way on the stalk. Always seems to very bright and solid yellow, but are much more of a summer bloomer in the Northeast, and die off in the early fall. It also rarely has any warts, and if it does they are only a few in the dead center. The guidebooks say it is poisonous along with muscaria, but I am almost positive that it's not, and that it's actually a tasty edible (from inner mushroom circles). I do not recommend eating it by no means. Amanitas (the genus) have the most poisonous mushrooms in the world, but luckily Muscaria is very easy to identify among the group, actually one of the easiest mushrooms overall in all mycology.
