Unknown

Why does edibility remain unknown?

David Arora estimates that the forests of North America and Europe hold thousands of macrofungi species that no one has ever tried to cook. The reasons are very practical:

1. "LBM" (Little Brown Mushrooms): "Little brown mushrooms" is an unofficial but widely accepted term among mycologists. It covers hundreds of species of small, thin-stemmed, inconspicuous mushrooms (bonnets, Galerina, small webcaps) that have no culinary value at all. There is simply no point in picking them for food.

2. Rarity: If a species is extremely rare and never fruits in large numbers, there are no statistics on people eating it (or on possible poisonings).

3. Difficult identification: Some species can only be told apart under a microscope. If one of them is edible and another is "unknown", the general advice is to avoid both.

Presumed poisonous

In her works, M.Ya. Zerova takes a strict medical approach: any mushroom of unknown edibility must be considered dangerous by default (inedible or poisonous).

Experimenting on your own health by testing an "unknown" mushroom is deadly dangerous. Many lethal poisons (such as orellanine in webcaps) have a hidden latency period of up to 14 days. A person eats the mushroom, feels perfectly fine, and two weeks later their kidneys fail irreversibly.