Mushroom season is coming, and this book has me HYPE!

In The Company of Mushrooms: A Biologist’s Tale – Elio Schaechter (1997)

            It is currently winter here in Houston, Texas, which means that soon the weather will warm up a bit, the rains will come, and the ground and trees will be full of mushrooms once again.  As an amateur mycologist, I am really looking forward to this next mushroom season.  While I wait for it, I find that reading cool books about mushrooms helps me to pass the time and prepare for my next hunts.

            The author of this book, Mr. Elio Schaechter, is a trained scientist, specifically in biology.  He combines his scientific knowledge with his love for the exploration and fun found in mushroom hunting.  The book is divided up into several parts, each of which focuses on one specific aspect of this fascinating hobby.  The first chapters discuss exactly what is a fungus, what is a mushroom, and how they fit into the tree of life.  Fungi are ancient, very ancient.  The organisms we class as fungi are so old that they belong to a separate kingdom of life, and have been evolving since before the advent of flowering plants and trees.  A mushroom is the fruiting body of many types of fungi whose purpose is solely to procreate.  Others do not make mushrooms, instead utilizing spherical shapes, jelly shapes, or other such creations to spread their spores.

            Another chapter in this great book details the use of mushrooms throughout history, and yet another explains the rise of mushroom hunting clubs and organizations.  These are some of the best parts of the book, as they detail the fun and camaraderie found by people whose shared interests in mushrooms bring them together to learn and eat and have fun.  As the world of mycology is largely one composed of self-starters and amateur hunters working alone, these mushroom/mycology clubs are a great resource for information exchange and education.  I myself have joined the Gulf States Mycological Society, and hope to head to a foray at one of the massive state parks here in Texas, as soon as the weather allows.

            One of the topics that Mr. Schaechter returns to is that of the traditional mushroom hunters in Europe and Asia, and why this has not taken hold in places like the UK, or the USA, where mushrooms are seen as dangerous and eating wild foraged mushrooms especially so.  This bias is a shame, as mushrooms are a very good food source when sourced intelligently.  The area I live in, near Houston, TX, is estimated to have 5,000-6,000 species of fungi, of which just over 1,000 are identified.  The climate is moist and there are lots of places for the mushrooms to grow.  Being in the middle of the continent, mushrooms from the East coast grow here as well as mushrooms from the West coast.  This hobby, which takes you into nature, allows for education and fun, and if lucky, results in delicious mushrooms for your table, is one that can be enjoyed by a great many people.  I hope to do my part by sharing my mushroom adventures and spreading the fungal love.

(This book can be purchased here:  IN THE COMPANY OF MUSHROOMS )

We may in fact owe all of our planet's life to the magnificent Fungi

Fungal Biology in the Origin and Emergence of Life –David Moore (2013)

      One of my life’s passions is that I love mushrooms.  Actually, I love fungi of all types.  I seek them out after spring rains.  I keep my eye on the ground as I walk around the campus where I work.  I also keep careful notes in my head about what mushrooms are delicious and safe to eat.  I photograph almost every mushroom, slime mold, or lichen I find.  The variability is amazing, and many of them are outright beautiful to look at, but I think part of the thrill is that mushrooms are unpredictable.  They do not grow in orderly ways like plants do.  Finding a patch of delicious chanterelle mushrooms is great, but it is no guarantee that they will be there again next week, or month, or even at the same time next year.  Mushrooms are ephemeral in their way.  It is amazing to think that these overlooked organisms may very well have been the very first self-contained life to evolve in our world.  This story is the subject of Fungal Biology, by David Moore.

      Moore is a biologist, having recently retired from working on genetics and mycology.  If any human has the ability to understand the many threads that point to fungi as the initial role-player in the web of life it is Mr. Moore.  His explanations are sensible, even to someone with a limited background in mathematical or genetic knowledge.  The first part of this book details the properties of modern-day fungi, and how their cellular features differentiate fungal life from vegetable life or animal life.  This background is very important to understanding the rest of this book.  I learned quite a great deal just from the first chapter alone.

      In following chapters, David Moore explores the scientific consensus regarding the state of the Earth in the early days.  As he describes it, a habitat must have been created before the processes began which lead to multi-cellular life.  This habitat was a very different place than the green and blue orb we all live on currently.  Not only were there no plants or animals on Earth about 3.7 billion years ago, there were no cells of any type, or even oxygen in the air!  Only with the arrival of single-celled, photosynthetic proto-algae did our world’s atmosphere begin to be oxygenated.  In fact, most of this early oxygen “fixed” itself to the massive quantities of Iron atoms dissolved in the primordial oceans, raining down a silt of iron oxide molecules that created the world-wide layers of iron ore we have been mining for the past 1000+ years.  It was not until the flourishing of single celled plants in the oceans that the atmospheric oxygen actually rose to the super high levels that allowed the massive proliferation of land-plants, and the animals that lived on those plants.  This took well over 2.5 billion years to occur, a magnificently ridiculous expanse of time.  (For comparison, Dinosaurs lived around 100 million years ago, and the genus Homo has been running around the Earth for maybe 600,000 years.  Our whole current civilization is barely older than 10,000 years, a trifle in comparison)

      Before plants and animals came to dominate the Earth it was fungi that ruled.  They ruled for over 2 billion years!  They did not spring wholesale out of the ground though.  David Moore describes through several chapters what he sees as the mechanism by which life arose.  Many scientists have claimed that the first cellular life that we would recognize as such arose in inhospitable places, such as underwater thermal vents, deep caves, or volcanic fissures.  We find very hardy microorganisms in these habitats now, and call them Archaea, but these creatures are actually quite late-comers compared to other fungi, bacteria, and algae.  Moore posits that much of the chemicals for life existed in the vast aerosols that covered much of our atmosphere.  Aerosols are just particles so small that they stay aloft as they are buffeted by the molecules of the atmospheric gases. Each of these tiny aerosol droplets was a laboratory, mixing up pre-living enzymes, amino acids, lipid molecules, etc.  It only takes one of these billions to manage putting together a self-replicating molecule.  These aerosols and organic molecules would have ended up dispersing this material all over the Earth, resulting in a landscape we would never recognize, of rocks and gravels covered in a thin bio-film.  It is the materials in this worldwide bio-film that served as the food source for our OG organism, allowing it to grow, replicate, compete, and evolve.  I can only summarize what is covered in much more proper detail in this book.

      By the time plants arose, so many fungi existed that today 90% of all plant life has some sort of relationship with it.  Many plants are in symbiosis with fungi.  The fungus provides rare minerals to the plant through the connection of roots and mycelium fibers (hyphae), and the plant provides the fungi with simple sugars that it needs to grow.  Some fungi are predators of plants, and work more like parasites.  Still other examples see plants that parasite the fungus, where the plants receive the benefit but provide none for the fungus involved.  As far as animals are concerned, almost no herbivore animals exist that do not have a colony or colonies of primitive fungi/bacteria living in their digestive tract.  The very first herbivores ate tons of fungi unknowingly, and in many cases this became a deep symbiosis.  Without the fungus in a cow’s gut, the cow would not be able to extract nutrition from the cellulose that makes up most of what it eats.  All plant and animal life owe their existence to fungi.

      To this day the kingdom of fungi is overlooked.  Humans place undue value on animals, for we are animals.  We value plants, because so many of them are needed for our survival.  I think we should start to praise and love fungi as well.  We are here because they were here.  They broke the inhospitable Earth for us plants and animals.  Without them nothing in our vast web of life would exist, and our world would be just one giant layer of biofilms, exuding tar and other waste products.  I cannot begin to describe the amount of information provided here by David Moore, but I am very glad I ran across this cool and seminal work.  I hope it brings mycology to the forefront and helps shape the conversation for decades to come.  Now to go outside and look for some more mushrooms!

(This book can be purchased here: FUNGAL BIOLOGY IN THE ORIGIN AND EMERGENCE OF LIFE  )

I want to eat ALL of these mushrooms

100 Edible Mushrooms – Michael Kuo (2007)

I have spent my whole life fascinated by the world of Fungi.  Whether it was seeing them pop up “magically” overnight on a fresh cut lawn, or reading about their life cycle, I was always intrigued.  I love to eat the mushrooms that fungi create.  I love to take photos of any mushrooms I run across in my day-to-day life.  Lately, I have been on a kick to read as much about these amazing living organisms and their place in the fabric of nature and life on Earth.

Mushrooms are delicious.  They should be, as they are the fruiting bodies of the fungi, created solely to spread billions of spores in an effort to have a few of them germinate and grow into their own mature fungus.  The actual fungus usually lives hidden away, whether just under the soil, or under layers of bark.  This is where you will find the mycelium, which is like a ragged net of fibrous tentacles, somewhat like a chaotic root system.  This mycelium is what grows and processes the food that the fungi live on.  Some fungal mycelial mats are so huge they cover acres and acres of territory.  In fact, a fungus is the largest living organism we have yet to discover.  There is one in the northwest woods that covers so much acreage it is mind-boggling.

Out of all the mushroom species we know and have scientifically described, few are good to eat for humans and even fewer are delicious.  There are an estimated 16,000 species of fungi in North America alone, of which only around 3,000 or so have been documented by science.  This makes it a very interesting field for someone like me, who loves science and scientific inquiry.  It allows the dedicated amateur to make great contributions to a developing science.  It also makes for fun hunting when searching for mushrooms for the dining table!

Mushroom identification is a very painstaking endeavor, and should be learned preferably at the hand of a mycological expert, or at least someone who has years of experience collecting edible mushrooms.  This is not possible for all, and that is why books such as this are a great resource.  Too many mushroom guides either concentrate on the hard science behind the fungi, leaving interested amateurs scratching their heads, or they want to be as encyclopedic as possible, making it difficult to find information quickly.  Michael Kuo’s book does a great job of focusing solely on 100 edible mushrooms.  Out of these 100 though, only around 20 are considered choice to eat, best cooked simply and their flavor and aroma enjoyed that way, while many are bland but edible, suitable more for addition to soups and stews.  Either way they are highly nutritious and fun as hell to find.

In the past two years of my mushroom explorations, I have come across a patch of amazing Chanterelle mushrooms only once, and in my backyard of all places!  As stated in this book, they were a bright orange color, had false gill ridges underneath, had white flesh when cut that did not discolor, and smelled of a fruity apricot.  I cleaned them and sautéed them in butter and some salt and chives, and my wife and I feasted on them atop some scrambled eggs.  It blew my mind, and tasted better than any store bought mushroom I had ever tasted.  Hopefully the Houston area has a mild winter this year which would allow for the woods to our northeast to be rife with cool mushrooms as the rainy season continues.  Mushroom identification and collecting is a great hobby and I hope to make some cool mycological discoveries!

(This book can be purchased here:  AMAZON  )

Terence McKenna explores Mind-Expansion and the Human Condition

Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge, A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution – Terence McKenna (1992)

            I first read this book when it came out in 1992, around my sophomore year in college.  Much of the insight of this book was lost on me, as I had not yet had time to understand the very far-reaching socio-historical implications of Terence McKenna’s scholarship.  Picking it up again, after 25 years of growth and reading and experience, only served to impress me even more.  This is a highly important book, and should become a foundation for the changes that humanity must make as a whole in order to thrive, and in order to better live in harmony with the life-world that we take for granted.

            One of the most intriguing questions regarding the development of our species is when and how the roaming primates developed a higher level of consciousness from the other primates on Earth.  There are many proposed ideas, most of them based on theology/mythology and not actual grounded empirical knowledge.  Terence McKenna was one of the very first to propose that the naturally occurring hallucinogenic plants and fungi helped expand the minds of the hominids, who would ingest these items in their search for food.  In a sense, he proposes that these hallucinogenic properties created the first “shamans” who then had to figure out a way to explore the rich world that natural plant hallucinogens open up.  He has much evidence for this, and it does help explain the sudden rise of what we call modern humans (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) around 100,000-250,000 years ago, and their/our amazing ability to process information and solve problems.

            After discussing the origins of the human exploration of mind-altering substances, Terence McKenna goes into a very depressing but integral analysis of the role that substance addiction and use affected our human culture.  After the matriarchal, communal, tribal stages of life, where the shamans (initially female, as they were the ones gathering plants and mushrooms and testing them as food, and then both female and male) would open up their minds with these natural compounds, to better understand the needs of the tribe or the patient.  After several millennia, humanity began to live in larger aggregations, in locations that were fixed, and the access to the natural hallucinogens waned.  In this time, the fermented juices and grains began to be used for intoxication as wine and beers.  This new substance was then used much as the old hallucinogens were.

            Once humans managed to distill alcohol, to get purity and strength, it all went to shit.  The problems we face today of alcoholism, rage, violence, and neglect have been around ever since humans distilled the “spirit” of the wine into a potent and toxic drug.  The next drugs to overtake all of humanity, and to continue helping in the degradation of the tribal units, were caffeine, sugar, and tobacco.  Tea initially carried the caffeine addiction but it was not until the spread of coffee, and of the mass manufacture of refined sugar, that caffeine addiction and abuse became a very real thing, and just as deadly as any other drug out there.  Combine this with tobacco, and you have a large amount of the population living constantly in an “altered consciousness” state.  The high from sugar is just as euphoric and the crash just as brutal, as tobacco or caffeine.  The massive and mind boggling extent of the human slave trade was a direct result of the addiction to sugar and the rum that can be created from it.  The Dutch and the British set up a very neat system.  They would gather up slaves in Africa, sell them in the New World to coffee, sugar, and tobacco plantations, buy vast amounts of rum, sugar, and tobacco, sell it all for a massive profit in the UK and Europe, and then go right back to buying humans and selling them off.  This lasted for HUNDREDS of years.

            Once these substances were in use, the state and the merchants combined forces to create vast networks of distribution for these substances.  The British government controlled the tea trade much like drug cartels do so today.  They then decided to get into the opium trade, purposefully flooding China with opium in an effort to make a nation of subservient addicts.  They almost succeeded.  At every step of the way, these drugs were refined and made even more potent and deadly.  Opium was refined to morphine, and thought to be a cure for opium addiction.  Heroin was refined from morphine, and likewise was supposed to combat morphine addiction.  The power of heroin to destabilize and subsume a population is evident when McKenna describes the purposeful distribution by the CIA of an exceedingly pure heroin brought in from Vietnam and surrounding areas.  It was called China White and was released to only the black neighborhoods, creating generations of junkies, unable to stand up for their rights.  Our government and in fact, most governments, use these drug cartels to their own ends.  Most of them are propped up by our support.  Pathetic.

            Terence McKenna continues on to describe his plan for the elimination of what he calls “the Dominator Culture” that we all live in today.  Instead of human unity, our culture pushes and prizes division.  Instead of legalizing natural substances capable of helping people deal with addictions, trauma, and which open the mind to possibilities unknown, our Dominator Culture sets hallucinogens as CLASS 1 drugs, meaning they have absolutely no medicinal, social, scientific value, which is a flat out lie.  It is solely a means by which to control those who would study these amazing plants and fungi.  However, they easily allow the deadliest and most addictive of drugs to be widely marketed and sold in every corner.  Alcohol, tobacco, and sugar products are what keep people subservient, diseased, and mentally dull.  It suits their interests.  It does not suit our own individual rights.  This is why there was such a crackdown on the hippies.  Their drug taking did not lead to subservience and a drone-like ability to do meaningless 9-5 jobs.  They had to be broken and humiliated.  We must all remain robots.  That is what they want and they are succeeding.

(This book can be read here:  https://archive.org/stream/TerenceMckenna-FoodOfTheGods.pdf/TerenceMckenna-FoodOfTheGods_djvu.txt )

(This book can be purchased here:  AMAZON  )