by Britt Bunyard, Tavis Lynch
The Beginner’s Guide to
Mushrooms is your ultimate guide to mycology. Whether you’ve never
picked a mushroom before in your life or you’ve been cultivating
mushrooms at home for ages, the expert advice in this comprehensive
mushroom manual will transform your practice.
Never
before have mushrooms generated so much interest, for their health
benefits and medicinal properties, as well as a new understanding of
their crucial role in a healthy environment and ability to regenerate
damaged ones. If you are a newcomer, mycology, or the study of mushrooms
and other fungi, can seem daunting. While other field guides are geared
toward experts with advanced knowledge or regional in scope and aimed
at only a few easy-to-recognize mushrooms, The Beginner’s Guide to
Mushrooms by veteran mycologists Britt A. Bunyard and Tavis Lynch is a
complete reference and guidebook to get you started identifying,
cultivating, cooking, and preserving mushrooms.
The
Beginner’s Guide to Mushrooms opens with important basics about wild
mushrooming and how to use the book. Information about what fungi
are and their role in the environment and around the home is provided in
brief and very understandable terms. Basic wild mushroom anatomy is
discussed along with how to identify mushrooms and various
characteristics to look for—of great importance if you are interested in
learning how to recognize edible wild species…as well as dangerous
look-alikes. The guide then covers:
- All
the major groups of wild mushrooms, pointing out habitat, region, and
notable characteristics—large photographs with easy-to-view
characteristics facilitate correct identification.
- Mushroom
cultivation—with easy-to-follow illustrated instructions, learn how to
grow mushrooms at home, including how to collect wild specimens and
domesticate them.
- Culinary uses and how to preserve wild mushrooms to be enjoyed in the kitchen all year round.
