For those who have experience, yes – but to the inexperienced eye, there are some false morels that can definitely trick people.
duckduckgo.com/?q=morel+lookalike+gyromytra&t=viv…
We have some Gyromitra that pop up every year in one area of our backyard. They produce a molecule, gyromitrin, which is metabolized in the body into monomethylhydrazine, which is used in rocket fuel(!)… So be careful.
Apparently Gyromitra are consumed in Europe by some – but only after careful preparation… I am not brave enough to try that :/
AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That’s funny, you are like opposite me.
There are a lot of exceptions, Morrells are actually one of the few mushrooms that can kill you or make you very ill if you don’t cook them long enough, so I wouldn’t even call them exceptions. They still require knowledge and prep. That includes chicken of the woods which can be dangerous depending on which tree it’s growing on.
Oyster mushrooms on the west coast of the US are a fair bet, someone in this same thread made a good list, but it’s regional. A high percentage of the poisonings in California (Australia too as I understand it) used to be SE Asians who mistook them for paddy-straw mushrooms. A lot of these articles are saying that it’s more wide spread this time because of “naive” people harvesting. I hope it’s not like food insecure people trying to fill caloric gaps…
There are plenty of amateurs who rise to the ranks of expert, but the consequences of error can be very high. I recommend anyone who wants to harvest to learn to spore print as part of identification. Harvesting any wild edibles requires a lot of research, mushrooms topping that list by a fair margin.