>  with the recent mention of burger's mushrooming &
>hypothetical instincto testings of toxic liver from a puffer fish, i've
>wondered what raf to avoid (i know many here would say "all of it."
>half a year ago, i counted myself among that crowd).

Guy-Claude Burger was very explicit that even though the death cap
did not give him any olfactory cues, he did get a distinct taste stop
("musty") when he chewed a small piece, so he spat it out (and lived).

Elsewhere in the book, he responds to a question about a person who
uses instinct to pick good mushrooms from bad, then cooks large
quantities of the good, with something to the effect that
a poisonous mushroom might still taste good in small quantities
(without any detrimental effects from ingesting), yet prove
lethal in larger amounts.

>From this I infer that a puffer fish liver should give a
seasoned instincto a stop (and if it didn't, the quantity that
s/he ingested before getting a stop should be beneficial to
him, i.e. harmless.)


Roy

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: poisonous insects ?
Author:  [log in to unmask] at SMTPGATE
Date:    3/5/97 9:41 AM


aloha!
     raffers,
          with the recent mention of burger's mushrooming &
hypothetical instincto testings of toxic liver from a puffer fish, i've
wondered what raf to avoid (i know many here would say "all of it."  half
a year ago, i counted myself among that crowd).

     specifically, poisonous insects.  when down in orange county, i
lay in the sun by the pool reading m2m (good memories), and occasional
bugs would land on my sunwarmed naked body.  i never ate the few big
"house flies" that visited me, but i did get somewhat cavalier about
novel insects.

     one little orange flying bug i squished quickly with my palm and
licked it off.  tasteless.  a small grey "no-see-um", again tasteless.  i
ate the second little orange flyer i'd ever seen in my life.

     at the end of january i ate five red wiggler worms.  one every
hour or so in front of a high-school class.  i don't know if i posted
about the bitter-tasting worms before, but the school wants arlan & i to
come back & give a worm presentation to the whole campus in an assembly.
a trip to orange county coming soon?

     two or three days ago i ate my first snail.  very small, asleep
on a big green leaf (unknown 'weed') in the sun as the morning dew
steamed upwards.  crunch, crunch, slime and not much else.  unimpressive.

     a couple spiders every now & then.  no taste from them, but
different textures between little black arachnids & the daddy-long-legs.
i smush them before putting them into my mouth, not wanting to get bitten
back (or wake up in a cocoon! ;-) )

     ants-o-plenty.  after a while they burn my tongue too much & i
stop.  eaten a couple hundred at a time, though.  those chimps sure
relish 'em, and i haven't found any termites to test yet, so i go for
what comes to me (ants on my counter after every little honey dribble).

     should i eat any insect that crawls within reach, trusting my
taste?  this question goes out to france, europe, san marcos, everywhere!


crawling with questions,
               bodhi