Mushrooming Without Fear: The Beginner's Guide to Collecting Safe and Delicious Mushrooms

A very clear guide and system to identifying SOME of the choice edible mushrooms out there (I am in Virgina and it works for me...most of the shromms listed are available across the US). MUST READ FROM FRONT TO BACK including the Introduction (no skipping) to understand the rules of his system. Yes, there are plenty of other edible mushrooms out there that are not mentioned in this book. This book is merely meant to get you started and keep you absolutely, unquestionably safe. It is *not*, however, intended to be a guide to *all* edible mushrooms. You will see critiques of this book that say the suthor tells you not to eat mushrooms with gills. That's because it is HIS SYSTEM of keeping you safe at first. Of course there are edible mushrooms with gills. Are they able to be confused with potentially toxic mushrroms? YES> That's why they are not in this book. If critics would have read the info instead of taking bits out of context, they would have seen that. I am a biologist who has been studying and eating and growing my own mushrooms for years. I recommend this book ONLY FOR BEGINNERS. People who have some mushroom study already under their belt do not need this system. It's great for the completely un-initiated who don't want to die.

This guide is very descriptive in terms of the edible varieties of mushrooms. In our neck of the woods, we also can get lobster mushrooms (which are also edible), which were not added to this book, though. Obviously there are so many edible varieties that would make this book super thick, buy I'm glad it's not a thick book. It's a very easy read. Several of my 10-year-old students were wanting to read it, and one asked to take it home with him to study. He even came back the next day with a little bookmark in it! It's not a children's book, per se, it's just easy and interesting enough for them to read. I even added a bonus question on the test pertaining to the majority of mushrooms with gills, that EVERY student got correct; which tells me that even pre-teens will remember the foraging hints in this book. So if you, too, are over the typical curriculum dumbing-down, try giving quality nonfiction books like these a whirl. It helped my lower students become better readers because they actually WANT to know what's between the covers. For this age group I also recommend "Survivor Kid" by Denise Long (A book I've taught in class for two years now that gets excellent feedback from the youngsters!) But as far as mushrooming goes, "Mushrooming Without Fear" is also awesome, liked, and resourceful for all ages. Highly recommended!

There are, indeed, hundreds of color pictures in this book (a must for field guides, in my opinion), and great step-by-step instructions. However, do not be misled... this is strongly oriented toward helping mushrooming beginners to get started. Only twelve (not 700+) types of mushrooms are identified, and while it seems to be a good selection I found myself wanting to be able to identify other mushrooms I've found, good or bad. With all the pictures, this book is an easy read. I finished it in about an hour. The pictures and checklists are well organized. In summary, I love the book and recommend it as a beginning mushrooming guide -- with caveats. It does a great (maybe overzealous) job of eliminating riskier candidates. However, even with the small number of mushrooms covered, it may be slightly oversimplified in spots. It would be discouraging to start into this hobby and not be able to find any of these twelve varieties, yet pass by other excellent candidates. Then again, you have to start somewhere...

I recently picked up mushroom hunting while visiting a friend. She showed me Mushrooming Without Fear and suggested to give it a try. My friend had never hunted for mushrooms before and I only had experience with chanterelles many years ago in a totally different region. This book gave us the needed confidence to venture out together. A few of the mushrooms we found that day made their way on the dinner table and we have been hooked ever since. What helped us was the fact that the book features only a few edible and easily to identify mushroom species. For successful identification you have to follow all the rules in the book and check your mushrooms not only against the color photographs, but also against the positive ID check lists and color range bars in the book. If one of the checkpoints cannot be checked off for a particular mushroom you found or you have any kind of doubt, you have not positively identified the mushroom, and you should not eat it. If, on the other hand, you are able to positively identify a certain mushroom, you are in for treat.

Interesting and easy read. Not enough detail or photos for identifying types of mushrooms, but does tell where and when to find them.

There are people complaining because the author didn't cover the nuance of mushroom taxonomy. They complain that he ignored gilled mushrooms. Well, if you don't know what you're doing, you shouldn't eat wild mushrooms. If you want to get into mushroom foraging, then skipping the gilled mushroom is a safer way to get started. You might get a tummy ache, but your chances of getting deadly sick goes down a lot when you skip gilled mushrooms. You gotta crawl before you can walk. Once you're comfortable with basic identification, then you can partner up with a skilled mycologist and take the nuance of things like pore printing and other stuff. This book promises to take some novice out and let them eat their very first wild mushroom relatively safely, and he definitely delivered on that. Overall very happy

I had hoped I would be able to use this book to identify mushrooms in my local area in the upper midwest. The information in this book is useful but there isn't a lot of mushrooms listed. I was looking for chicken of the woods and pavement mushroom but neither are in this book. If you need something with a variety of mushrooms, get something else. If, you are looking for basic knowledge, this is a good place to start.

I read it in one night

Very informative book. Easy read and vry descriptive. Lovely educational book for 1st time mushroom enthusiasts. Definitely gave us the confidence we needed to start foraging. Don't skip a page!

Very useful book with clear instructions and photos

This is a wonderful book for an experienced mushroom picker as well as a novice. Very clear instructions on how to identify some of the more delicious mushrooms that can be found in the wild and how to tell them apart from the dangerous ones. I have been picking mushrooms since I was old enough to walk the woods with my mother. She taught me which mushrooms were safe and which were not. However, her knowledge was somewhat t narrow so, despite my considerable experience of mushroom picking (50 years or so), I have gained knew information and added new, delicious mushrooms to my repertoire. I highly recommend this book.

Despite having lived in Europe and having married into Central European roots (where "mushrooming" is widely practised without fear) I have always harboured a very British concern about harvesting and eating wild fungi. Result? I love mushrooms, but end up paying through the nose for them at supermarkets. However well-intentioned those purveyors are, they cannot match the freshness of foray to food in less than an hour. This book has overcome all those prejudices. With one simple and oft-repeated rule--and seven other subsidiary rules--you can start producing excellent fresh sauces and preserved mushrooms yourself and live to tell the tale. Easily read (front to back cover in twenty minutes over a cup of coffee in my case) you will have the confidence to identify and reject the poisonous fungi that give their ilk a bad name. Along with them, to be on the safe side, you'll also reject the field mushroom, but to compensate you'll find plenty of other more exotic and flavoursome varieties. It's worth considering the hardback version of the book that comes with a pocket field guide to carry into the woods. It's not enclosed in the paperback. However, this version is perfectly serviceable and takes up less shelf space! PS - This book also explains that what we call a "mushroom" is not, in fact, a mushroom! How weird is that?

Better field guide than others I got for mushrooming, but bereft with spelling errors... It would be beneficial if author would show pictures of some mushrooms they warn look like edible ones but are not - like one where that author says the non edible mushroom is orange vs the yellow one which is edible - but only shows pictures of the edible one - without a picture of the orange coloured mushroom for comparison. Had to google it to see a picture of that orange coloured mushroom... Very subtle difference to my eyes, so that is something I would expect the author to address with sufficient detail and pictures as he does for most of the other mushrooms. Otherwise - great book. One suggestion to the author /publisher - this kind of publication is perfect for also releasing some kind of digital version, as taking a book to the field is much more cumbersome than just using your phone for this information.