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Mushrooms (Numerous kinds of Mushroom)

THE numerous kinds of Mushroom (Agarics, Boleti, etc.) which spring up around us, (and of which more than a hundred edible sorts are to be found), do not possess any special medicinal virtues except as regards two, or three; nor do those which come to table boast any greater food value than other ordinary fresh vegetable products. Indeed, in some respects they are inferior, and their very nature as saprophytes, or products of rotting vegetation, and decaying organic matter, stamps them as somewhat ignoble food. The popular belief that Mushrooms are highly nutritious-one kind being described as the vegetable beef-steak (Hepatica fistulina) is more or less a delusion. As compared with meat, their supply of proteids, or flesh-formers, is very small. We have to tell the vegetarian he must consume at least ten pounds of Mushrooms in order to gain the equivalent of a little over one pound of prime beef. These fungi, however, furnish an unusual amount of potassium salts, which fact is much to their credit. As to the dry, solid constituents of Mushrooms, they differ very materially in kind from the superior solids of meat. With the juice of the Horse Mushroom (Agaricus arvensis) Catsup is made. This Catsup, or Ketchup (from the Japanese), is to be concocted thus: "Lightly bruise the Mushrooms, and strew over them a little salt; then boil with spices, and herbs, the juice which may be expressed after the Mushrooms thus treated with salt have stood for from twentyfour to forty-eight hours." Sydney Smith, when a hard-working curate (1798) in the midst of Salisbury Plain, said he often dined on a mess of potatoes sprinkled with a little Catsup. Once a week the butcher's cart came over from Salisbury, and it was only then he could obtain any meat.

For making Mushroom sauce: Wash, peel, and stalk enough 'button' Mushrooms to fill a half-pint measure, and add them to two gills of the best beef gravy, which has been previously thickened with from one to one and a half teaspoonfuls of flour, and stirred over the fire till it boils. Allow the Mushrooms to simmer slowly in the sauce for ten, or twelve minutes; then stir in four teaspoonfuls of Mushroom Catsup, and half a teaspoonful of lemon-juice; season with salt, and pepper, if necessary, and serve very hot." The field Mushroom for cooking can be readily distinguished from any harmful fungus by the fresh pink colour of its gills underneath the top disc, by the solidity of its stem, the fragrant anise-like odour which it emits, and the separability of its outer skin. The chief chemical constituents of wholesome Mushrooms are albuminoids, carbohydrates, and fat, with mineral matters, and water. From the Golden Spindlespike (Clavaria fusiformis), when stewed, a sweet dish may be made. Our English Agaric, or field Mushroom, furnishes phosphate of potassium, a cell salt especially reparative of exhausted nerve tissue, and its energies. Mr. A. Broadbent, of Manchester, teaches that an excellent tea for invalids may be made from the ordinary edible Mushroom (Agaricus campestris) which is highly nitrogenous, and endowed with much fat. The beef-steak fungus grows on oak trees, and resembles in its darkbrown appearance, its sapid taste, its animal odour, and its soft, pulpy touch, the commodity after which it is named. "Fried in butter," says Dr. Cooke (Royal Horticultural Society), "it is delicious." The Roman Emperor Claudius was killed by eating Mushrooms. "Hither the Emperor repaired in hope to recover his health through the temperature of the air, but, contrarily, here met with the Mushroomes that poysoned him." If a carefully-peeled onion is boiled with Mushrooms, and comes out clean-looking, they may be eaten with confidence; if it turns blue, or black, they should be thrown away.

Strong alcoholic drinks ought never to be taken together with, or immediately after eating Mushrooms. Experienced fungus eaters (mycophagists) have found themselves suffering from severe pains, and troublesome swellings, through drinking whisky and water at a Mushroom meal; whereas a precisely similar meal, minus the whisky, could be eaten with impunity by the very same experimentalists. Edible Mushrooms, if kept uncooked, become dangerous: they cannot be sent to table too soon after being gathered. In Rome our ordinary Mushroom (there known ८०