Welcome back to Mushroom Kingdom, travelers! Pull up a chair because it’s learnin’ time – beginning with Chapter 1 of Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms (GGMM) by Paul Stamets. If this is your first time here, we’ll be going over the entire book throughout the GGMM series in a series of blogs which I will be posting every Saturday night PST. I’ll most likely have a break here and there to talk about other subjects but for the meantime, we’ll be getting some education in. Let’s begin!
In the first chapter of GGMM, Stamets goes over the historical use of mushrooms of human history. One of the great assets of mushrooms that people have taken advantage of is the very useful trick of killing your enemies!
The earliest recording of mushroom use actually lies in a Tassili image from a cave dating 7,000-9,000 years ago (Samorini, 1992). The article linked (which is a PDF download, if you want to read more about it) explains that the paintings were found, by Henri Lhote, in secret sanctuaries.
In 1991, hikers in the Italian Alps discovered a mummified man who was named Ötzi or the Iceman, who carried on him a variety of goodies, one of which was a knapsack. Inside this knapsack were berries, two birch bark baskets, and two species of polypore mushrooms with leather strings through them. One of the species of mushrooms was the birch fungus, known for its medicinal properties, and the other was a fungus used for tinder.
Stamets briefly mentions some societies view fungi with fear and loathing, particularly the English and Irish. Other societies have enjoyed a long history of mushroom use, such as the Polish, Russians, and Italians. Stamets also mentions an investment banker named Robert Gordon Wasson, who studied mushroom use in diverse cultures from Mesoamerica to Eurasia/Siberia. Stamets claims that Wasson is responsible for kindling the interest in ethnomycology moreso than any other individual in the 20th century.
The next historical usage of mushrooms is a very interesting one indeed…
Aristotle, Plato, Homer, and Sophocles participated in religious ceremonies in Eleusis, where other pilgrims journeyed 14 miles from the Athens, paying a month’s wage to also attend this annual ceremony.
The ceremony, termed Eleusinian Mysteries, was a gathering for a mystery cult where participants descended in to a hidden central chamber and consumed a fungal concoction. The pilgrims spent the night and came out forever changed. Upon leaving the ceremony, no pilgrim was allowed to speak about the ceremony’s secrets under the punishment of imprisonment or death. This ceremony, according to Wasson, persisted for nearly 2,000 years!
I think it’s time we bring it back.
And with that ends Chapter 1! Hopefully you enjoyed the first episode of our GGMM series, and we’d like to see you back for the next one. Don’t forget to honor those who passed this Memorial Day, and as always, safe travels!