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By BRUCE SLOANE
Rappahannock New« Contributing Writer
Mushrooms are common in Shirt Tail Hollow, particularly after a rainy spell in the spring. The old timers say that some mushrooms make you drunk (today’s generation says “hallucinogenic”), some make you sick, some make you dead, and some, persumably a minority, are good to eat. Partly because there are so many other plants and trees to learn, most folks in the Hollow learned to identify only two kinds of mushrooms: merkles, which are good to eat, and all the rest, which aren’t.
Aunt Suzanne wanted to learn more about mushrooms. She met a woman in Speiryville who had led mushroom-picking tours, and claimed to be an expert on the subject. Aunt Suzanne invited her to stop by. When she arrived she looked fairly normal, but identified herself as an expert mycologist. A mycologist, she was quick to tell, is a specialist in fungi, and her special interests among the fungi was edible mushrooms.
Joy, Aunt Suzanne, and Uncle Fred accompanied her up the trail. The expert pointed out different kinds of mushrooms, and told them which ones were good to eat. “Oh, look," said the expert, “these on the left side of the road are good eating. They’re better than Psalliota campestris. Look at the broad pileus! You can tell them because they don’t have a ring below the stripe.” Aunt Suzanne and Joy nodded sagely.
“Look!” continued the expert. “On the right side of the road! That’s the chanterelle all the restaurants are looking for!” She quickly scooped up several handfuls into her paper bag. “These are delicious fried in butter with pepper. I had several for dinner last night. And one restaurant will pay me $29 a pound for them.” She gently patted her stom
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