An authentic cuisine grade Mushroom Soup.

[BrianHG]

If you want to taste a real mushroom soup, this is what you have to go through:

[tooki]

That’s similar to a recipe I developed years ago. Sauté to a golden brown a ton of sliced mushrooms in olive oil or clarified butter. Towards the end, add shallots and sauté them too. Add whiskey or sherry. Take out half and set aside. Add beef stock to the pan and let it simmer for a few minutes, then let it cool down to lukewarm. Transfer that to a blender and purée the living daylights out of it. Return that to the pot, add the reserved sautéed mushrooms, and bring it back to heat. And you’re done. The finely puréed mushrooms actually provide all the creaminess that’s needed. You can add cream, but it doesn’t need it IMHO.

I once made a mushroom soup using $35 of bona fide foraged mushrooms from the farmer’s market. (That was maybe two handfuls.) Stupidly expensive but by golly was it good.

[Siwastaja]

I like to go mushroom hunting, a lot.

We are now lucky to live right next to a forest which gives excellent amount of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craterellus_tubaeformis , and I would say this is one of the best 'shrooms available, with a strong taste, I prefer this over chanterelles. When dried, you can grind it to powder and it will give excellent taste to any soup or food, really.

Do a dough from wheat flour, butter and grated cheese, and add a filling made of the said mushroom, bacon, leek, cream, and more cheese grated on a top, and it makes almost too good to be true pie. A lot of fat, though.

Mushroom opportunities are great, here. You get good fresh stuff from a forest, premium quality, for free. Many collect Boletus edulis for money, to be sent to Italy, where it is sold for mind-blowing price.

But it's easier to get it for free - just go to the nearest forest.

But I like Craterellus tubaeformis even more.

[Ghanou]

I like to go mushroom hunting, a lot.

We are now lucky to live right next to a forest which gives excellent amount of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craterellus_tubaeformis , and I would say this is one of the best 'shrooms available, with a strong taste, I prefer this over chanterelles. When dried, you can grind it to powder and it will give excellent taste to any soup or food, really.

Do a dough from wheat flour, butter and grated cheese, and add a filling made of the said mushroom, bacon, leek, cream, and more cheese grated on a top, and it makes almost too good to be true pie. A lot of fat, though.

Mushroom opportunities are great, here. You get good fresh stuff from a forest, premium quality, for free. Many collect Boletus edulis for money, to be sent to Italy, where it is sold for mind-blowing price.

But it's easier to get it for free - just go to the nearest forest.

But I like Craterellus tubaeformis even more.

it is in fact allot cheaper as in free to pick out mushrooms from the forrest but i would be very careful when picking wild mushrooms as many have been hospitalized or even died from eating the wrong types, yes they might be sold for very high prices but in my opinion that makes sense considering the risks and the skills required to pick them. personally i've only had the canned types unfortunatly but i would love to try someday, do you think a pie like you desribed can be made to taste good using the canned mushrooms?

[tooki]

Many places have mushroom inspection stations where you can take your foraged mushrooms and an expert will check them for you to make sure you don’t die and stuff.

[Siwastaja]

Driving a car is super dangerous if you don't know how to drive - the solution is to learn to drive, not to avoid cars! Worst, even if you can, there is the risk caused by the small minority of others who can't.

Mushroom hunting on the other hand - no one's going to force mushrooms through your throat, so just learn one simple rule and you are totally 110% safe: do not eat anything you can't 110% reliably identify. There is no lack of guidebooks, but it's best to ignore very old ones. (It's also a good idea to learn the few most dangerous species, those that are deadly poisonous, as an additional safety layer, although if you strictly followed the first rule, this wouldn't be needed.)

Mushrooms are healthy, and the act of mushroom hunting is healthy both physically and mentally. Being afraid of it is a waste. Just don't be stupid.

Many books instruct to "learn just a few new mushrooms each year" but if you can trust yourself not to be stupid or with limited brain capacity, feel free to go for more. Me and my then-girlfriend-now-wife got into this 'shroom thing within one summer and IIRC we ate more than 30 different species that summer, Just Because We Could. Most of them were not that great culinary experiences, though. We have never had any symptoms whatsoever, which should be obvious because we don't take risks, but I'm saying it anyway. This includes using many of the Lactarius genus considered poisonous pretty much everywhere except Finland, processed in the correct way. (Lactarius torminosus would be a funny-looking example. Perfectly edible if you know what to do!)

Also we have this thing called "Google" today to help us with not only identification, but also a second opinion. There are some interesting, special cases, like "Tricholoma equestre" which very rarely and randomly causes a deadly reaction in small minority of people who eat it. For the first time, this was well documented as recently as in late 1990's, so books from 1990's still ignore to warn against them. Even with later books, some authors strongly believe this mushroom is safe to eat because they personally like it and have had no personal problems with it. It's really "Paxillus involutus" (found deadly in 1950's) or asbestos (even earlier) all over again, it just takes 50-100 years for people to accept the toxicity or danger of something, from actually proving it without any doubt, to people really believing that proof. But, having Google, you can bypass this stupid delay and get recent information to make your own, informed decision - just avoid "iffy" things!

[PlainName]

I hate mushrooms, but unfortunately for me we get huge ones, more than 6" across, in the garden and periodically the kitchen is covered in the blighters since my partner both likes them and prefers home grown. Although by 'home grown' I mean 'just happen to sprout nearby' as opposed to intentionally cultivated.

[jpanhalt]

Mushroom hunting on the other hand - no one's going to force mushrooms through your throat, so just learn one simple rule and you are totally 110% safe: do not eat anything you can't 110% reliably identify.

Even the best mycologists can be wrong.  Now, if you only accept certain safe types, you're better off.  I am in the school that all wild mushrooms have risk.  Some are riskier than others.  Did you know that squirrels are "immune."  That is not because of any biochemical immunity, but because of their fast GI transit time.  So, my advice to you is take Ex-Lax.  Lots of it.  (Actually, i doubt that works with humans.  At least, I am not squirrely enough to test it.)

[george.b]

Mushroom hunting on the other hand - no one's going to force mushrooms through your throat, so just learn one simple rule and you are totally 110% safe: do not eat anything you can't 110% reliably identify.

Even the best mycologists can be wrong.  Now, if you only accept certain safe types, you're better off.  I am in the school that all wild mushrooms have risk.  Some are riskier than others.  Did you know that squirrels are "immune."  That is not because of any biochemical immunity, but because of their fast GI transit time.  So, my advice to you is take Ex-Lax.  Lots of it.  (Actually, i doubt that works with humans.  At least, I am not squirrely enough to test it.)

I've been picking mushrooms for years now. Obviously I'm still here. Never had any ill effects whatsoever, either.
I don't get this fear some people have from wild mushrooms. The fact of the matter is, the huge majority of mushrooms aren't deadly. Those that are toxic will usually just give you gastrointestinal distress. Of course, it's still judicious to treat unknown/uncertain mushrooms as potentially deadly and one should only consume mushrooms identified with 100% certainty, as any field guide, mycologist or mushroom picker will tell you, and which is the correct advice, instead of suggesting the use of laxatives, especially since the onset of symptoms for certain kinds of mushroom poisoning can be delayed for days, at which point whatever mushroom was transiting through your GI tract will be long gone down the toilet, but the point is - just like there are poisonous plants, there are poisonous mushrooms, yet you don't see people throwing "even the best botanists can be wrong" around when people pick berries or whatever.

[Siwastaja]

Even the best mycologists can be wrong.  ...  I am in the school that all wild mushrooms have risk.

Sorry but this just sounds totally paranoid.

Theoretically you are right. Paxillus involutus and Tricholoma equestre are the two examples. Their classifications have changed in 1950's and 1990's, respectively, and there is still a risk some mycologist or author just does not principally agree with science but gives dangerous advice because of their emotional attachment to said mushrooms. Yet, the reason their toxicity was discovered as late, is because they are fine in 99% of cases if not more. So you would need to:
* Ignore modern books; ignore to double-check; ignore to Google
* Eat them many times while never Googling,
* Still have extremely bad luck,

to become sick or die.

Of course it's a fair assumption that intelligent life must exist outside of Earth, too some mushroom species believed to be safe turn out to have very rare reactions with 0.001% of people; i.e., Tricholoma equestre all over again. It's just that science goes forward, life expectancy of people goes up, and this is more and more improbable every day. You can further reduce the risk to basically zero by eating the most well known and widely used species.

But, even if you buy pre-processed food, vegetables, meat, etc. from the supermarket, in the end, there is a real non-zero risk it's accidentally contaminated with some poison or some super microbiological hazard. Or, while visiting the store, you get COVID  and die, even if you wear FFP3 mask taped to your face.

Or while in the forest, picking mushrooms, a wild bear comes and eats your head.

We can theoretize that everything carries non-zero risk, but average people normally ignore this, and it's sensible to do so. Benefits of living your life outweigh the tiny risks. Just avoid actually risky behavior; in case of 'shrooms, this would be eating all mushrooms without identifying them.

But indeed, if you assess the suitability of food based on what you see squirrels do, you are doing it all wrong. Very wrong.

[jpanhalt]

@Siwastaja
Post #6 "Mushroom hunting on the other hand - no one's going to force mushrooms through your throat, so just learn one simple rule and you are totally 110% safe: do not eat anything you can't 110% reliably identify."

Post #10 "Yet, the reason their toxicity was discovered as late, is because they are fine in 99% of cases if not more. So you would need to:..."

My comment was relative to the 100% and 110% safety statement.  Glad you agree.  Some people enjoy parachuting.  I don't.

[Siwastaja]

While parachuting is surprisingly safe when done right, it's still many orders of magnitude more risky than eating well known mushrooms. It's also harder to do right.

I don't parachute either but know someone who does. Those who do, find the risk - benefit factor good enough, probably because they see the benefit part of it differently.

110% is obviously a joke. Realistic numbers are something like 99.999%.

Getting into a car is very dangerous in comparison!

But in any case, you are just lying to yourself, as you are taking actual risks way bigger in your life without blinking an eye. It's OK to say you just don't like mushrooms.