Funghi - the deadly and the sublime
A blog to cover all bases, this one. Should your hotel restaurant have a mushroom-hunter on staff you may well be lucky enough to see a mushroom called ‘Caesar’s Mushroom’ (Amanita Caesarea, aka Ovolo buono, Coccora) on the menu. It’ll likely be served raw, thinly sliced with some parmesan shavings or other mushroom slices, and you absolutely must try it if in Italy. Incredibly delicate, and held by many to be the finest mushroom there is, the common name alludes to the fact that this was the favourite of the Roman emperors.
However, the rest of the family aren’t so nice. Members of the same Amanite family include the famous red and white fairy tale mushroom, the fly agaric (poisonous, hallucinogenic) and the kills-people-in-Italy-every-year-without-fail death cap. Below (from a mushroom show in the Garfagnana, close to Lucca) is a photograph of each, the sublime followed by the deadly.
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