Subject: tasting deadly amanitas -- safe?

From: Dave Lewicki <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 19:57:56 -0800

Ok -- perhaps "safe" isn't exactly the right word, but I am wondering
what a death-cap (amanita phalloides) tastes like.  In particular, I
am wanting to know the exact difference between the taste of a
spring-time (a. velosa) and a death-cap.  

An answer to this question would be nice, but what I really want to 
know is, what would be one's exposure to the amanitins if that one
(me) were to just taste a wee bit and then spit it out.

Enquiring minds want to know.......

ADVthanksANCE,
	-dl

-- 
|_.,-*~'`^'*-,._           _.,-*'`^'*-,.-*~'`^'*-,._                     
     |
| Dave Lewicki  '*-,._  just another grad student at Cal Poly State Univ., SLO|
|                    '*-,.__.,-*'         '*-,.            _.,-*~'`^'*-,._    |
| [email-masked]://phoenix.calpoly.edu/~dlewicki'*-,|

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From: [email-masked] (Robert Brambl)
Date: 12 Mar 1996 16:35:22 GMT

> | Dave Lewicki  '*-,._  just another grad student at Cal Poly State  
Univ., SLO|
[email-masked]://phoenix.calpoly.edu/~dlewicki'*

This query may have not been entirely serious, but the absence of a reply  
should not be taken as endorsement or encouragement of your sampling an  
Amanita cap out of curiosity. 

Actually the mushroom poisoning literature does answer this poster's  
question, sort of.  Some physician-mycophiles have asked recovering  
victims of their impressions of the flavor of Amanita.  However, these  
patients tended to be too unsophisticated about mushroom flavors or too  
inexperienced to draw comparisons.  Perhaps they also were too few in  
number.  Or perhaps the process of recovery from the emergency liver  
transplant affected their impressions.

Just say no.

Robert Brambl
University of Minnesota

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From: [email-masked] (system admin)
Date: 13 Mar 1996 02:45:49 -0000

I see people make that, without consequence...
Paul

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From: [email-masked] (Bill Nail)
Date: 13 Mar 1996 00:43:46 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, Dave Lewicki <[email-masked]> wrote:

> what a death-cap (amanita phalloides) tastes like...(cut)

I've heard (anectdotally) that survivors say that they are delicious.

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From: [email-masked] (R.N. Weinstein)
Date: 13 Mar 1996 16:35:19 GMT

Apparently, a fingernail-sized portion of these mushrooms are fatal.  I 
wouldn't try it.

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From: Thomas O'Dell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 21:29:32 -0800

Whoa, whoa there, lets not get too carried away here!
Half a cap is considerably more than "a fingernail-sized portion"
More to the point, any mushroom can safely be chewed up and tasted, 
provided you do not swallow it. Watch out for spoilage though (and those 
Russulas!!)  :)

  "a-Amanitin is extrordinarily toxic for humans. The LD50 [lethal dose for 
half the population] is estimated to be ... 6-7 mg for the average 
person... [about one half to one average cap at 0.5 - 1.5 mg/g mushroom]"
- Dennis Benjamin, pg. 211 in Mushrooms: Poisons and Panaceas (a handbook 
for naturalist, mycologists and physicians). 1995. W.H Freeman & Co.

> Apparently, a fingernail-sized portion of these mushrooms are fatal.  I 

[email-masked]
Mycology is better than Urology!