Throughout history, people have had a complex and confusing relationship with mushrooms. Are fungi food or medicine, beneficial decomposers or deadly "toadstools" ready to kill anyone foolhardy enough to eat them? In fact, there is truth in all these statements. In Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares author Greg Marley reveals some of the wonders and mysteries of mushrooms, and our conflicting human reactions to them. This fresh and fascinating look at mushrooms – their natural history, their uses and abuses, their pleasures and dangers – is a splendid introduction to both fungi themselves and to our human fascination with them.
From useful descriptions of the most foolproof edible species to revealing stories about hallucinogenic or poisonous, yet often beautiful fungi, Marley's long and passionate experience will inform and inspire readers with the stories of these dark and mysterious denizens of our forest floor. Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares: The Love, Lore and Mystique of Mushrooms won the Jane Grigson Award at the International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook Awards in June 2011. The Jane Grigson Award is given to a book that exemplifies Jane Grigson's great ability "to put food in a wider cultural context, using diligent but not pedantic scholarship."
- Mushrooms and Culture
- Mushrooms as Food
- Dangerously Toxic, Deadly Interesting
- Mushrooms and the Mind: The Origin of Religious and the Pathway to Enlightenment
- Mushrooms within Living Ecosystems
- Tools for a New World
Greg Marley has a passion for mushrooms that dates back to 1971, the year he left his native New Mexico and spent the summer in the verdant woods of central New York. Since then, he has become an avid student and teacher of mycology, as well as a mushroom identification consultant to the Northern New England Poison Control Centre. He is the owner of Mushrooms for Health, a company that provides education and products made with Maine medicinal mushrooms. Marley is the author of Mushrooms for Health: Medical Secrets of Northeaster Fungi. He lives and mushrooms in Rockland, Maine.
"This book is an enticing invitation into the fungal realm, accessible and a pleasure to read. Author Greg Marley's enthusiasm is infectious, as he encourages an appreciation of fungi as essential ecological partners, and empowers readers with practical tools. These pages are filled with foraging and cultivation tips, scientific explanations, ancient lore, literary references, and entertaining stories, with the mission of transforming mycophobia into mycophilia."
– Sandor Ellis Katz, Author of Wild Fermentation and The Revolution will not be Microwaved