While the mushroom picking season is in full swing, French-speaking inspectors are sounding the alarm about the risks of poisoning because these do not only come from inedible mushrooms.
Each year in Switzerland, hundreds of poisonings are recorded and their number is currently among the highest in history with a record of 733 cases in 2019. In 2022, 655 poisonings, including around thirty serious cases, have been recorded.
“People don’t know that they don’t know how to hunt mushrooms,” warns Véronique Lyon in the columns of Matin Dimanche, who checks hundreds of mushrooms per year in Mont-sur-Lausanne.
Poor quality and inedible
The controllers note that the poisonings have several explanations: the products harvested are not edible despite their appearance very close to other species which are, or they are indeed edible but are not fresh enough and are therefore more suitable to be contaminated by worms
“In Switzerland, the majority of poisonings are caused by rather edible mushrooms, particularly boletes,” recalls Jean-Michel Froidevaux, president of Vapko (Swiss Association of Official Mushroom Control Bodies).
Cooking, appearance and control
It is therefore advisable not to wait more than 24 hours before consuming the mushrooms collected or to prepare them immediately then freeze them, simmer them for around ten to twenty minutes before eating them – therefore avoid eat them raw, as the trendy recipe for bolete carpaccio dictates — and pay attention to their appearance. A yellowed porcini mushroom, for example, will be more likely to have parasites and cause illness.
Finally, the best thing is to have your basket of mushrooms checked.
juma
#Swiss
