How to Forage for Mushrooms without Dying: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Identifying 29 Wild, Edible Mushrooms

With the surging interest in foraging for mushrooms, those new to the art need a reliable guide to distinguishing the safe fungi from the toxic. But for beginner foragers who just want to answer the question “Can it eat it?”, most of the books on the subject are dry, dense, and written by mycologists for other mycologists. Frank Hyman to the rescue! How to Forage for Mushrooms without Dying is the book for anyone who walks in the woods and would like to learn how to identify just the 29 edible mushrooms they’re likely to come across. In it, Hyman offers his expert mushroom foraging advice, distilling down the most important information for the reader in colourful, folksy language that’s easy to remember when in the field. Want an easy way to determine if a mushroom is a delicious morel or a toxic false morel? Slice it in half “if it’s hollow, you can swallow,” Hyman says. Is a mushroom toxic? “If you smell it and your head snaps back, do not put it in your sack.” With Frank Hyman’s expert advice and easy-to-follow guidelines, readers will be confident in identifying which mushrooms they can safely eat and which ones they should definitely avoid. AUTHOR: Frank Hyman is the author of Hentopia. A designer, builder, gardener, and freelance writer, Hyman leads workshops on designing and building chicken coops and hen habitats. He has written for Organic Gardening, Modern Farmer, Fine Gardening, Hobby Farms, and the New York Times. He lives and maintains his own flock’s hentopia in Durham, North Carolina.