Morels are toxic raw; it’s possible they were undercooked. Raw morels have resulted in mass food-poisonings before (a notorious example was a banquet for a police chief’s retirement in Vancouver, where the raw morels in the salad sickened almost a hundred people and sent some to hospital.). It’s also possible there were misidentified gyromitra, but that seems unlikely. The fatality could have been caused by her choking on vomit; or it could have been unrelated to the mushrooms and due to bacterial contamination. Time should tell…
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Yes, raw morels are poisonous. Even some chefs don’t know this (I had to advise a well known chef in Vancouver that putting raw morels in his steak tartare was a very bad idea).
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That’s why I use the Guide Duchemin to pick restaurants.
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I collect & consume fluted black elfin saddle (Helvella lacunosa) on occasion. As LurksNoMore noted, I dry them in a dehydrator (with good ventilation) for later use, although I have eaten them thoroughly pan fried with no ill effects, drying seems safer.
Honestly, their flavor isn’t all that great, but they can add some welcome texture when added with other types of mushrooms. Got a big jar of them in the cupboard right now.
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When I foun out the body actually manufactures nitric acid I was a tad concerned…
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Hey, I didn’t eat the mousse!
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That’s good. If it killed me, I’d certainly want my money back.
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Metabolism produces an enormous number of toxins. The liver is largly a detoxification machine. But, as the wise man said, it is the dose that makes the poison.
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Wiki may be inaccurate here; hydrazines have never been detected in true morels. It was speculated that hydrazines may be responsible for their toxicity when raw, but the actual toxin has yet to be elucidated (surprisingly, since it an intensely marketed mushroom). I picked pounds of them last year, and it is well known among pickers that an overly-generous portion of even cooked morels can have painful consequences for some people, especially when alcohol is consumed with them.
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I know where some of those grow.
I’ve never eaten them.
I can’t see them tasting any worse
than black trumpets though,
they are so foul.
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Mmmmmm…
Best ad libbed line ever!
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The wild mushroom risotto must be a popular dish? This is just plain ol food poisoning, they trying to protect that star.
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Not being a “fungus guy”, I have to ask if morels are cultivated, as well as harvested from the wild, and if so, what medium are they grown on. If it’s the usual fertilizer type mushroom farming, then improper sterilization of the medium could have transmitted all sorts of fun animal pathogens if the morels weren’t cleaned properly (and my understanding is that some people do not wash mushrooms, but rather brush them clean to avoid waterlogging them).
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I dont know; everything in this picture tells me “dont eat me!”.
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Undercooked morels are not toxic to everyone. My wife is one of those lucky people who can eat them. They are bad although generally not life-threatening. There are fungi like the False Morel which look and, I am told, taste like morels which are toxic and can cause death in rare cases. I’m guessing it was a mushroom which resembled morels but wasn’t.
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They are cultivated but most are still harvested wild
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… and apple seeds contain a small amount of cyanide.
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They are now cultivated in China, but the vast majority are wild-gathered (mainly in forest fire areas). At this time of year they would likely be dried morels, unless the chef had frozen a lot of fresh ones, which keeps their texture a bit better. But cooking should kill any pathogens anyway…
