Edibility class

The main edibility classes

In her «Key to the Fungi of Ukraine», M.Ya. Zerova draws a clear line between mushrooms according to how fit they are to eat:

1. Edible: Contain no toxins at all. You can cook them right away (fry them, make soup) without parboiling first and pouring off the water. (Porcini, chanterelle, field mushroom).

2. Conditionally edible: Contain mild toxins, irritants or bitterness that are fully destroyed by proper heat treatment (long boiling with the water poured off) or by salting. (Milk caps, lurid boletes, honey fungus).

3. Inedible: Mushrooms that are not poisonous but are physically impossible to eat because of tough (woody) flesh, an awful smell of phenol or rot, or unbearable bitterness. (Bitter bolete, bracket fungi).

4. Poisonous: Contain toxins that are not destroyed by boiling. They cause gastrointestinal or neurological disorders but usually do not kill a healthy adult. (Panther cap, yellow stainer).

5. Deadly poisonous: Contain lethal doses of highly toxic poisons (amatoxins, orellanine) that inevitably destroy the liver or kidneys. (Death cap, funeral bell).

The cultural context of edibility

In «Mushrooms Demystified», David Arora stresses that the idea of "edibility" is often cultural. What counts as a delicacy in Eastern Europe (salted milk caps or slippery jacks, for example) may be labeled "inedible" or even "poisonous" in many Western field guides, because soaking mushrooms for weeks simply isn't done there.