Thanks, everyone, for your birthday wishes. I didn't do anything incredibly special yesterday (my family and I went out for a day around London) but it was great fun, and the weather was great (for once).
12th Archivist wrote:
Happy birthday, person who can now legally kill himself with alcohol! (Not saying you would, but you never know...)
Now that you're 21, what do you plan on doing the rest of your life?
Ha! Well, that would (partially) depend on whether I decide to kill myself with alcohol or not.
In the incredibly more likely case that I do not, however (liver failure doesn't sound fun), I don't really know. I'm definitely going to finish my medical training, but after that, who knows?
noma wrote:
Happy birthday Agaricus! So I've always wondered: as a mycologist, what's your favourite eating mushroom? Or perhaps you morally object to the consumption of mushrooms?
Hmm...
A quote from an book I have on such an issue approximately states: "
There are old mushroomers and bold mushroomers. But there are no old, bold mushroomers."
I have to say that I have never actually eaten anything I have identified in the wild, since I don't fall into the risk-taking category of mycologist. I'm pretty sure I'm right, but then, there's a small risk I'm not. There are, however, some not-so-edible mushrooms that I would definitely like to inspect in real life, though. For example, the aptly named "
Cannonball fungus"
, which can physically fire large spore-containing balls for relatively large distances; or various members of the
Clathraceae family, which grow into unusual shapes such as cages and stars and contain highly foul-smelling spore masses on their surfaces (for insect dispersal).
As for my favourite edible mushroom, I haven't been far beyond those mushrooms one can buy commercially. I would like to try some (red) truffle just to see what the fuss is about, but I bet they're terribly, terribly overrated.
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Resident Medic/Mycologist
