A non-mushroom eater (all the more for me!) asked me why we eat mushrooms. Especially when so many are either unpleasant to eat or down right poisonous. Unfortunately I don't know - except to show you the rather overexposed photo above taken at the grocers at Radda-in-Chianti. Imagine our hunter gatherer ancestors, wandering around central Italy when there it is - a great fat, brown pugeant porcini mushroom. Something as plump as that has to be food, doesn't it? And some of the older ceps have been nibbled by small animals (or even by the hairy wild pig we've been chasing) and we take a risk by seeing if it kills the dog! It doesn't and the rest is history.
Having tried the big plump porcini and found them good, our ancestor settled down (don't want to stray too far from the place where those glorious fungi grow) and tamed the pig. Which gave a great opportunity to test out all those other mushrooms growing in the forests - if they don't kill the pig we can eat them and if they taste good we eat them again! And the pig - or maybe the dog - turned up another joy by rootling up the truffle.
In truth fungi are an important part of the diet for many mammals:
"It's clear that fungi are a dominant food item for many species of small mammals, particularly among squirrels, mice, and voles, and, in Australia, among several groups of small marsupials, such as bettongs, potoroos, and rat-kangaroos. Some of the more notable fungivorous mammals include the California red-backed vole (Clethrionomys californicus) and the northern flying squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus), for whom over half their diet is from hypogeous fungi, and the long-footed potoroo* (Potorous longipes), who's diet is over 90% fungi." (from Mycoweb)
So mammals eat mushrooms and we're mammals - QED! And mushrooms are not without their nutritional value either (although, as the saying goes, should be consumed as part of a balanced diet - we aren't all potoroos!).
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