Hospitals in SW France are reportedly seeing an increase of mushroom poisoning cases.  The culprit is the Satan’s Bolete, Boletus satanas. It’s a blue-stainer that apparently has the smell of carrion, that increases as it matures.  Now that doesn’t sound appetizing at all. This mushroom is a sickener, and patients reportedly recover after a couple uncomfortable days. The article suggests that most of the people poisoned were tourists who thought the Satan’s Bolete were Porcini.

The moral of this story is that should need to be very careful identifying mushrooms in the wild and you should only eat the ones you are certain are safe. There are plenty of nasty mushrooms out there.  I believe the saying is that there are old mushroom pickers and there are bold mushroom pickers but there are no old bold mushroom pickers.