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Mushrooms (As the Pratella is held)

as the Pratella) is held in very small esteem; and the worst wish an Italian can express against his foe is "that he may die of a Prateola." If this species were exposed for sale in a Roman market, it would be certainly condemned by the inspector of fungi. The Mushroom is styled in general a fungus, from the Latin "funus ago," I cause a death. Nevertheless, Mushrooms were exalted to the second course on the Cæsarean tables, with the noble title Bromotheon, "a dainty fit for the gods," (to whom they sent the Emperor Claudius, as they have many since into the other world.) So true it is, "He who eats Mushrooms several times 'nil amplius edit,' eats no more of anything." In every case Mushrooms should be cooked very slowly. Place them in a pie-dish with plenty of salt, and butter, adding in some cases a little water; also, if liked, parsley, onion, garlic, or other condimentary herbs. The common Mushrooms (Agaricus campestris, and Agaricus arvensis) will take an hour and a half to be properly cooked after this fashion. Of all animal and vegetable matters, there are three only which possess the principle of sapidity in the highest culinary and gustatory sense, viz., meat, cheese, and mushrooms. This sapid principle is an alkaloid, or a series of alkaloids, which is practically designated as osmazome. The usual field Mushroom (Agaricus campestris). is ordinarily eaten at two stages of its growth, -one when it has just risen from the mycelium, and is small, with its hymen still closed, and then styled a button; and the other when it is just expanded, its hymen forming a ring round the stalk, and the spore-bearing ridges making a rosy lining to the expanded umbrella. To be valuable, Mushrooms should appear plump at both these stages. If the spores have turned black, then the Mushrooms are over-ripe. Flabby, leathery, fissured, blacklined Mushrooms are to be avoided. The poisonous kinds possess permanently white gills, which do not touch the stem, whilst a thin ring, or frill, is borne by the stem at some distance from the top, and the bottom of the stem is surrounded by a loose sheath, or vulva. For poisoning by noxious Mushrooms, antidotes can be injected under the skin, whilst very small doses of strychnia are to be given in coffee.

The Puff-ball (Lycoperdon giganteum bovista) grows usually on the borders of fields, in orchards, or meadows, also on dry downs, and occasionally in gardens. It is so called from the habit of puffing out, or suddenly discharging a cloud of dusty spores when shaken, or squeezed, and when the chamber in which the spores are developed has been thus burst open. This is the Fist ball, foist, fuzz ball, Earthpuff, Bovista, Blind Harry, Blindman's-buff, Devil's snuff-box, etc.; it is edible whilst young, being then smooth, globose, and yellowish white. When ripe its fine brown-black powder is a capital application for stopping bleeding from slight cuts, and wounds. This also makes a capital drying powder for dusting on weeping eruptive sores between approximate parts, as the toes, fingers, and arm-pits. When the fungus is burnt its fumes exercise a narcotic effect, and will stupefy bees, so that their honey may be removed with impunity. It has been suggested that these fumes shall take the place of chloroform for performing minor surgical operations with its aid. When young, and purely white, the Puff-ball may be cut into slices a quarter of an inch thick, and fried in fresh butter, with pepper, salt, and pounded herbs, each slice being first dipped in egg-yolk. Pieces of its dried inner woolly substance, with a profusion of minute snuff-coloured spores, have been long an article kept by village dames for use to staunch cuts, a ready appliance being a piece of Puff-ball to be bound over the wound, and left there until healing has taken place. Sometimes when a full meal of the Puff-ball, fried in butter, or stewed in milk, has been eaten, undoubted evidence of the narcotic effects have shown themselves.

For discerning the Beef-steak fungus already mentioned, its peculiar mode of growth is a sufficient guide. It sticks out from the trunks of trees, usually near the roots, in a large horizontal, flat, oyster-like shape, one layer above another like a section of an oyster grotto. When cooked, and laid out on a dish, it very much resembles the ear of a colossal negro; if gathered near the sea, particularly on our East Coast, this fungus seems already sufficiently seasoned through its briny flavour. By too much stewing these edible fungi lose their appetizing moisture, and become leathery; whilst too little cooking leaves them of an india-rubber consistency, and not more attractive to the taste. Truffles (Tuber cibarium) are not fungi, but subterranean tubers of an edible sort found in the earth, especially beneath beech trees, and they are uprooted by dogs trained for the purpose. In Italy these tubers are fried in oil, and dusted with pepper. For epicures they are mixed with the livers of fattened geese in our Pâté de foie gras. They are stimulating, and heating, insomuch that for delicate children who are wasted in flesh, and require a multum in parvo of fatty and nitrogenous food, in a compact, but light form which is fairly easy of digestion, the Pâté de foi gras on bread is an admirable recipe. The English Truffle is white, and best used in salads. A taste for Truffles has to be acquired; then with those persons who gain it this taste becomes a passion, and they get to regard the tuber as a superlative morsel. Yet irreverent novices make light of the dish, and compare cooked Truffles to turnips flavoured with tar. (See also respecting Truffles, pp. 346, 347.) MUSTARD. (See HERBS.) A MUSTARD poultice made with the farina of black Mustard seed, and water, (with, or without some wheaten flour added) into a paste, constitutes one of the most effectual external stimulating applications we can employ. It quickly induces a sharp burning sensation on the skin of the part, with redness, (which would presently go on to destructive inflammation of the cutaneous surface, implicating the true skin below more deeply than does the old-fashioned blister of Spanish fly); so that the sinapism, or Mustard poultice, has superseded the blister, because acting more promptly, and more energetically for the speedy relief of internal congestions. A poultice made entirely of Mustard-seed should not be kept applied longer than ten minutes at a time. The volatile oil of this Mustard-seed, when mixed with spirit of wine (twenty-four drops of the oil to each fluid ounce of spirit) makes a capital liniment for external use against the painful stiffness of chronic rheumatism, or for determining blood derivatively to the surface from deeper congested, or aching parts. Against a headache for which prompt relief must be had, if a whole tin of Colman's Mustard is put into a large, hot bath, and the sufferer remains in the bath for ten or fifteen minutes, and lies down in the room for half an hour afterwards, the brain will then be far clearer for a while than even in ordinary health.

MUTTON (See MEATS.)