A cautionary tale

Our nearest M&S store is located in the usual sort of out-of-town shopping park and on the green sward in front I noticed a flush of fungi,  their tawny caps attractively autumnal  amongst the grass.  Some of our German or East European cousins might well have been tempted to gather them  but the Brown Roll Rim is Not Just Any 'shroom - no, it is the only species responsible for  the death of a professional mycologist.

Although traditionally popular on the continent the edibility of Paxillus involuta has nevertheless been something of a gamble for it has the reputation of causing stomach upsets, especially if not thoroughly cooked, and this could on occasion prove fatal. This doesn't necessarily put people off - an element of risk can add a certain frisson to the appetite as with those who consume Japanese fugu fish. However, caution was advised with the Brown Roll Rim as some people were known develop an intolerance of it.

Julius Schaffer, born 1882, was a German science teacher and authority on fungi. He retired from his teaching post in 1939 rather than promulgate the racial theories prescribed by Nazism but he continued to study and research mycology. In  October 1944 he and his wife dined on a dish of Paxillus involuta, as they had done many times before, but within 24 hours he fell ill. Owing to the war the local hospital was under-equipped and did not have what was needed to perform gastric lavage. Schaffer died 17 days later of kidney failure.

Paxillus Syndrome, as it is now called, is characterized by vomiting and diarrhoea, cramps, stomach ache, back pain, acute anaemia and collapse. It may be accompanied by clotting throughout the vascular system, kidney failure, often followed by multi-organ failure and death. Onset of symptoms occurs within a few hours of eating the mushroom. Characteristically, it affects people who have eaten the mushroom without problems for several years in the past. It was not until 1985 that the syndrome was discovered to be a massive allergic reaction  rather than fungal toxicity, which accounts for the fact that eating the Brown Roll Rim is fine until your body decides it's not and starts forming antibodies to it.

I believe that  M&S mushrooms from its food hall are perfectly safe.

More about Paxillus Syndrome here.