THE lowly mushroom may be the most contemptible kitchen item in Australia today.
But a local Baarkindjii/Malyangapa woman thinks they’re mostly pretty good blokes.
Aaranah-hope Blair is a keen amateur mycologist (a person who studies mycelium), and she told Broken Hill Times that mushrooms do more than create chaos in courtrooms and dinner parties.
“I’ve been growing my own for a while now,” said Ms Blair.
“My favourite thing to do with them is to cook with them, but you can dehydrate and powder some, and you can use them for medicinal purposes.
“They’re also beautiful ornamental – very pretty. If I had the tools, I’d do a couple in resin, just so I can look at them.”
Ms Blair’s love of the spore-bearing fungi began about four years ago when the mother-of-three found herself with a few hours a day to spare.
“Being a stay-at-home mum, the boredom got to me,” she said.
“I’ve always been interested in wildlife, both native and invasive, and I had plenty of time to study.
“So I linked up with a few foraging and identification groups on the internet. I’ve been mucking around with mushrooms ever since.”
Ms Blair said she digs “shrooms” on account of their uniqueness, that they’re “neither flora nor fauna, but directly in between”, a fact that means they’re often overlooked by environmentalists and wildlife enthusiasts.
“The Broken Hill National Parks and Wildlife Service have rangers dealing with native animals, lots of people working with flora and fauna, but none working in mycology,” she said.
“Once I get my licence, I hope to be able to work with them.”
Broken Hill is host to several different types of mushrooms, said Ms Blair, notably the desert shaggy mane (Podaxis pistillaris), the fish scale lichens (Psora decipiens), the anemone stinkhorn (Aseroe rubra) and the sandy stilt bowl (Battarrea phalloides), none of which – perhaps unsurprisingly – are recommended for eating.
In fact, Ms Blair warned that eating mushrooms from the wild can be tricky at the best of times; mushrooms absorb toxins from the soil, and that’s a problem in Broken Hill.
“There are a few nasties here that I’ve spotted,” she said. “You’ve got to be careful.
“A lot of tourists don’t know what they’re looking at and think they want to have a poke at something, or put it in their mouth. And if they don’t make it to the hospital in time, they could be very sorry.”
Ms Blair hopes to organise some foraging groups in Broken Hill, after the current furore around the Erin Patterson mushroom trial in Victoria has died down.
In the meantime, she’s playing it safe by keeping her mushrooms to herself.
“I’ve had a few negative comments when I’ve posted on Facebook about my love of mushrooms,” Ms Blair said.
“It’s all, ‘Look out, everybody, it’s a crazy mushroom lady, she’s gonna’ kill us all!’
“It’s all a bit silly.”
