These wild mushrooms look like a toasted treat, but are they edible?
They look golden brown and perfectly roasted, but these wild fungi are not for your s'mores. We learn how to tell whether this mushroom doppelganger is safe to eat.
I’m in Saskatchewan and I came across these mushrooms, just growing naturally. When you take the top off, they actually look a little bit like a roasted marshmallow--just golden brown.
But, should you eat it?
“That is probably a lepiota," said Paul Moran, chef.
I showed my pictures to Moran, who knows his mushrooms.
He says there’s a big difference between what’s known as a shaggy parasol and a lepiota.
(Nathan Coleman/The Weather Network)
"A lepiota [is] deadly poisonous, [while a] shaggy parasol [is] considered an edible choice. You can see in the photo that the lepiota is staying in a tighter-ball form while grown quite far out of the ground. A shaggy parasol will start off as a ball form, but as soon as it starts coming a few inches out of the ground, it will open up into its form," said Moran.
However, he says spore prints would be required to make an exact identification.
Despite its toasty looks, you don’t want to be making s’mores with this kind of mushroom any time soon.