Fungi Ain’t Fungible
But fools are
MILAN (Reuters) – At least 18 mushroom-lovers have been killed in accidents while hunting for their favorite fungi in the mountains and forests of northern Italy.
Mountain rescuers say eager mushroom seekers are abandoning safety procedures as they don camouflage and hunt in darkness to protect coveted troves, la Repubblica newspaper reported on Sunday.
…Seventeen people have died in nine days — six in 48 hours alone — mostly from sliding off steep, damp slopes in the northern mountains, la Repubblica said in a story headlined “the massacre of the mushroom hunters.”
Steep, damp slopes are nothing to truffle with!
Fun, Swill Food and Grog | Mr. Bingley | 
August 31, 2010 1:26 pm
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Yet another slippery slope!
/This post sponsored by the Darwin Marching and Chowder Society.
//Since I don’t drink I thought I had better rush this post before, well, you know.
It does make you wonder if they were trying for a group discount on the Darwin Awards, doesn’t it?
Those ‘shroom hunters spore nothing in their quest for these edibles, huh?
Alternate headline:
“Mushroom hunter deaths mushrooming”
Alternate headline:
“Mushroom hunter accidents mushrooming”
‘Scuse the double post….the infamous “Ken Summers” filter didn’t spore me.
We here at the International Brotherhood of Nocturnal Mushroom Muddlers find no humor in this news.
Hope the bottom of those mountains had mush room.
So how many of them nibbled the wrong mushroom, to see at night if it was the one they wanted, then thought they could fly off the cliff once the hallucinogenic secondary metabilites kicked in?
Not much to stem your fall when you go over a cliff I’m thinking.
And I thought it was bad that I nearly drowned several times frog gigging.
There’s a sad morel to this story, though I doubt crimini charges will be filed.
I hope the perps had the shitaki out of them.
(Why I don’t eat mushrooms out da woods.)
Maybe we need to push the button on this thread, or not.