Corpse mushrooms?

Saw a short bit tonight on one of the local Taiwan newscasts about buying and eating mushrooms that grow on dead people. :astonished: I know people here eat some strange things, but this is unbelievable!!

If I understood everything correctly, the most expensive mushrooms are the ones that grow from the jaw, which of course drops off as one decomposes. Mushrooms from the head were also expensive. And ones from the groin area were poisonous. Go figureā€¦

A guy who was involved in the harvesting of these shrooms was interviewed and they showed the inside of an old grave where you could see the various areas where they came from. Yikes. You canā€™t always buy them either, they are in high demand apparently, for medicinal purposes and the like. Witch doctors? One quote was $600,000 for a kilo.

Iā€™ve got to stop watching the local evening newsā€¦

Maybe I should have put this in the Food Forum? :sick:

Hmm. My place is kind of damp and dark. Maybe I should start inviting more people overā€¦Either that or cultivate a completely sedentary lifestyle and just try to grow them on myselfā€¦

And coming up next: Necromancy in Taiwan, fact or myth?

Oh mi gad.

Itā€™s like the more taboo it is in Taiwan, the betterer it is for your health.

Ech!

Ew! Shurely it must be illegal to disturb someoneā€™s grave?

It was presented as an ā€œapproved harvestingā€ type scenario. Iā€™m pretty sure it wasnā€™t being done without consent. But who would consent to that with dead family members?

I can see the obituary now:

Mr. Chen died yesterday ā€¦ blah blah blahā€¦ He is survived by his wife and childrenā€¦ blah blah blahā€¦ Funeral services will be held on Tuesday with Dharma Master Bodhi Light officiatingā€¦ blah blah blahā€¦ followed by interment at the Long Life Mushroom Farm.

From death comes lifeā€¦

Itā€™s natural to become fertiliser, I guess. Perhaps just not so directly. Thatā€™s rilly gross.

What shape are the mushrooms?

They are most likely one of the Hebeloma species, often found growing on the ground above a dead body (but only in the early stages of decomposition). theyā€™re fond of anything that releases ammonia and amines, like a freshly decaying body (any body, not just humans). Eating ones that are growing directly on the body is probably a lie, sorry, a salesmanā€™s embellishment of the truth.

they belong to the largest family of mushrooms, so they look pretty much like your edible varieties like Swiss browns or field mushrooms. they almost all look identical in proportion, with some species being slightly more yellow or even pink-tinged.

be careful eating random members of this fungus family, or any other fungus for that matter. the kidney poison orellanine has been isolated from many such fungi, and is lethal at about 10 mg/kg. there is no antidote either! itā€™s similar to the herbicides paraquat and diquat. trial a tiny piece of mushroom first, then wait three days before eating more of any unknown mushroom you find (and not eating it if it makes you feel ill. Dā€™uh). there are many other poisons as well in mushrooms: nerve, muscle and liver poisons in particular. cooking will not inactivate any of these poisons.

Some mushrooms are very poisonous and some looks like the edible kind! Donā€™t eat any mushroom in the wild to be safe.

Maybe some day there will be a market for my foot fungus. Toe-fu?

What if you were paid royalties per shroom sold, that were harvested off your late <ā€¦>, at NT100,000 a kilo with overnight yields?

Please dont get me wrong, this is not a genuine offer.