ben's interweb

[Ed: there are a number of threads (mycelia, or strictly, hyphae) that are throwing up fruiting bodies under this heading...
...Morelia writes:]

On the famous mushroom earrings.

I know I've told you this story millions of times, but it's one of my favorite stories about Ben, because it was very random and very silly and very very tender.

So, I was attending this art market in a bar called Hidalgo's; lots of girls got together to sell second hand clothes, jewelry, bags, very cute. I left early because I had work and Ben arrived later with Freddy and Claudio and Alex, probably.

They were hanging around and then Ben told me how he was looking around the tables and saw a girl selling "these very cute mushroom earrings"; and said he wanted them; he had the urge to buy them, but then realized he didn't have his earlobes pierced. Claudio then looked for a girl in the crowd that could pierce Ben's ears solely because he wanted to wear the red mushroom earrings.

The thing with Ben, I believe, in the time I met him and shared with him, was that whenever he saw beauty, he wanted to be a part of it, and the thing is beauty and poetry and all the beautiful yet human things easily found a way to him; he was a bit of a hurricane, and it was very chaotic to witness, couldn't keep track sometimes, and to be perfectly honest, a bit destructive, but never with ill intentions. I remember liking him so much I was already afraid of the mess he was gonna leave in our lives whenever he left.

The earrings were a hit, of course. Whenever he danced or skated, they dangled against his jaw and it was very attractive. He called them "the cutest red mushroom ever".

I bought the same earrings a few weeks ago. You want a pair?  [Ed: I think I will pass on piercing for now...but there's another Ben piercing story here...]



[Ed: this is a bit from me about...]

...Ben and mushrooms: Amanita - muscaria or rubescens?

I discovered in 2021 that Ben had a particular interest in mushrooms.  I already knew about his fascination with plants, including mosses and lichen, but it was only in 2021 that he told me about his Magic Mushroom activities at secondary school.  Apparently, during his time at Cape Cornwall School he and his friends would wander around St Just looking for  Magic Mushroom colonies.  They would then pick, prepare and consume said mushrooms; I believe those mushrooms were Liberty Cap - Psilocybe semilanceata:

By Alan Rockefeller - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24640791

However, I also believe that Ben's interest in mushrooms may well have started considerably earlier than his teenage years: from the age of 3 or 4, we used to take Tom and Ben on holiday most summers to our little house in Burgundy:

(that's Ben holding something strung from an upstairs window-hole).  Our next door neighbour in la Roche was Andre Poulet (I'm sure Andre will forgive me for using this image made by Ben) and Andre had a little business raising Bernese Mountain Dogs, which was called Amanita rubescens:
 
I remember well that Andre's business was called Amanita rubescens, and with all that red around the picture of the mushroom, I might be excused for thinking that the Amanita species referred to was:
                Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) rather than The Blusher (Amanita rubescens):
  
as you can see, Fly Agaric (muscaria) is much more dramatic than The Blusher (rubescens).  However, if you look carefully at Andre's advert, the mushroom that is in the top corner is almost certainly The Blusher (which is edible, but the way) rather than Fly Agaric (which is hallucinogenic, but also causes nausea).

Geoff Dann - I will give references below - says that he hasn't found out how to get the high from Fly Agaric 'without the stomach ache'.  He also says that he is 'rather fond of The Blusher [which] makes good eating.  The flavour is strong and it goes particularly well (fried) with a mixed grill, steak or sausages.'

It is my guess that Ben made the same mistake as me in remembering Andre's Amanita as being the bright red mushroom that he found in earring form in that art market at Hidalgo's in Mexico.  No doubt he also knew about its hallucinogenic properties, although I don't know if he ever tried out Fly Agaric.  And I believe that the image of Fly Agaric - linked with Andre's wonderful dogs in la Roche - was in the back of Ben's head from an early age, before he indulged in the fashion of using the Liberty Cap at Cape.

Mushroom books...

When Ben was living with Lorraine and/or me during lockdown in 2020 and 2021, he was using Jenny's other bedroom in Queen Street in St Just as his office. He used to go up to Moomaid in Market Square for a coffee in the morning, and he also floated around St Just, no doubt reminiscing and re-living his days around St Just when he was at Cape Cornwall School. 

During that time, he collected a decent harvest of Liberty Caps, and prepared and preserved them in a variety of ways at Jenny's - a jar of dried mushrooms, and another with some doubtful-looking liquid in it, then came to Phoenix Barn at some point.  I think this was probably the impetus for me to find a suitable book about what mushrooms were safe to eat (or whatever!) and which ones weren't.

I started off with Merlin Sheldrake's book, Entangled Life - which I absolutely consumed - it was amazing!  I had no idea about the breadth and reach of fungi: they underpin everything, really...
...but it didn't help with identifying which mushrooms (whether collected by Ben or by me) would kill us!  I tried another book called Gems of Nature - Fungi - a species guide...a world wide field guide...but that was really too slim and lacking in detail.

Finally I came upon Edible Mushrooms by Geoff Dann - 'A forager's guide to the wild fungi of Britain, Ireland and Europe'.  This was more like it: 75 pages on fungi in general:
What they are.
How to identify them:
    gills - free, adnexed, emarginate, adnate, decurrent;
    tubes and pores;
    colours;
    spore colours (using a spore print);
    size;
    caps;
    stems - rooting, club-shaped, cylindrical, tapering up or down, spindle-shaped, barrel-shaped;
    annuli;
    volva;
    flesh texture;
    smell;
    taste (and when NOT to taste!);
    habitat;
    season;
    veils.
Where and when to find them.
Safety and equipment.
Culture and laws.
Poisonous fungi.
(...and finally...)Edible fungi!!!

The book then follows up with 415 pages identifying everything likely to be found in the UK, from the Brittlegill family to the White truffle; photographs of every relevant species, with descriptions of all of those identification items (I have to keep on referring back to what decurrent or club-shaped actually means!) and if they might be edible, what they could be confused with - if they are poisonous, what they do to you; whether they are hallucinogenic, and what the side effects might be.  And finally, given that you have decided they ARE definitely edible, how to get the best out of them in the kitchen.  It is a GREAT book!

I read Entangled Life when Ben was living with me, and we shared my excitement about the ubiquitous-ness of fungi.  By the time I bought Edible Fungi, Ben was busy getting himself sorted out to go away somewhere - but I know he would really appreciate being able to forage around Phoenix Barn when the season came.  And I have foraged just in the fields next to the house this last year, finding field mushrooms, fairy ring mushrooms and meadow waxcap to eat, and weeping widow, common inkcap, common conecap, fibrecap and funeral bell to avoid!  I haven't found (haven't actually looked for either) the liberty bell yet - it is up in town, as I understand it - nor have I gone in search of the puffballs that I have been told about...maybe later this year.



¡Que haya luz! Kerenza ha yeghes da! Dad/Andrew x