Is this a puffball?

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Is this a puffball?
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mrsnesbitt

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 1576

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 9:21 am Post subject: Is this a puffball?
I found this at the bottom of our garden. I cut it in 2 and it does have a strong mushroomy smell. D

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 9:34 am Post subject:
Certainly looks like one, although in 'shroom pics it's better to show the outside as well as the cut side.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 9:50 am Post subject:
How big is it Mrs N? What did the outside look like? Looks very like one, let me know size and outside appearance and we can have a shot at working out what species. First impression is Bovista plumbea, which is edible (as are all of the true puffballs picked young), but I need more info.

mrsnesbitt

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 1576

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 2:37 pm Post subject:
The marks are peck marks I think...I don't know how many days it's been there...only a couple. It is about 6" diameter and 6" deep. Thanks

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 2:50 pm Post subject:
Looks awfully like a giant puffball to me... (even though at 6" its hardly a giant specimen of the breed!)

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 3:29 pm Post subject:
Happy eating Mrs N., it's a giant puffball Langermannia gigantea. If it ain't that (and it is), then it's still edible; it's clearly a puffball, and it's clearly white through. Might I suggest frying off some bacon, dipping slices ofpuffball (say, half inch thick or so) in egg and frying it in the bacon fat? Serving bacon and puffball with chips? Delightful supper.

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 3:30 pm Post subject:
Yep, certainly looks like langermannia gigantea, although I'm far from an expert (about 400miles actually) EDIT: Beaten to it by the expert.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 3:39 pm Post subject:

Jonnyboy wrote:

Yep, certainly looks like langermannia gigantea, although I'm far from an expert (about 400miles actually)

EDIT: Beaten to it by the expert.

I don't claim to be an expert, but I've eaten a hell of a lot of giant puffballs

I almost slapped the Prime Minister with one once, but that's another story.

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 3:42 pm Post subject:

cab wrote:

I don't claim to be an expert, but I've eaten a hell of a lot of giant puffballs

I almost slapped the Prime Minister with one once, but that's another story.

Didn't say you did, but in this field that's how I would class you.

Our current prime minister? do tell.

Andy B

Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Posts: 3920
Location: Brum

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 3:45 pm Post subject:
Lemon merangue!

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 3:58 pm Post subject:

Would've been back in 2000, right at the start of the so called 'petrol crisis'.

I was coming down to Cambridge on a Monday morning, I'd spent the weekend up in Nottingham. My better half still lived up there, she hadn't yet moved down here (I'd moved down several months before). I was in Leicester station, waiting for my connection, and in my bag was a big, very nearly over-ripe giant puffball. I had it in a carrier bag, it was too big to fit into my rucksack. We'd had a good haul that weekend and I was taking some to work to see if would work out how to make the thing grow, and of course to eat later.

My train was already an hour late, then there was a annoncement that it was going to be another 15 minutes late because a different train was coming into the platform. I picked up my bags and started to wander off in search of a cuppa as the train arrived. About 10' from me, on that train (no more; three or four metres away from me) a door opened and what caught my eye was that the first person off the train was a television camera man walking off backwards (a clever trick). The next person off the train, responsible for MY train being another 15 minutes late, was Tony Blair (turned out he was going to Loughbrough University for something or other).

Between me, my huge slab of wet fungus, and immortality, stood a television camera man waiting to transmit my actions to the world.

Right at the start of the 'petrol crisis', whe his popularity was just waning for the very first time.

I can't say I wasn't tempted. But I didn't do it.

Lozzie

Joined: 25 May 2005
Posts: 2595

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 4:01 pm Post subject:
I cannot believe that you would seriously want to abuse our Prime Minister in that fashion. By all accounts he is a really fun-gi to be with!

mrsnesbitt

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 1576

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 4:27 pm Post subject:
right I am going to eat it!

portwayfarm

Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Posts: 89

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 4:50 pm Post subject:
We have tonnes of them almost double the size and our son loves using them as footballs, I think its the fact that you can boot it really high in the sky and it disintigrates on impact.

Bernie66

Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 13967
Location: Eastoft

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 05 6:55 pm Post subject:

cab wrote:

Happy eating Mrs N., it's a giant puffball

Langermannia gigantea. If it ain't that (and it is), then it's still edible; it's clearly a puffball, and it's clearly white through.

Might I suggest frying off some bacon, dipping slices ofpuffball (say, half inch thick or so) in egg and frying it in the bacon fat? Serving bacon and puffball with chips? Delightful supper.

Just bought "food for free" and the bacon fat idea sounds very familiar

Off to woods at eight o clock. Am hungry!

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