Mushrooms and Madness: The Extraordinary Appetite of Charles McIlvaine
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
May 31, 1840
On this day, Charles McIlvaine entered the world in Chester County, Pennsylvania – a man destined to become one of history's most peculiar gastronomic daredevils disguised as a mycologist. A revelation, dear gardeners, for those who believe that courage is measured only on battlefields!
Our captain of the Civil War would later trade his military pursuits for a far more perilous adventure: voluntarily consuming hundreds of mysterious fungi with nothing but his constitution and curiosity to guide him.
One might call it madness; society called him "Old Iron Guts" – a moniker he earned with every potentially poisonous morsel that passed his lips.
By the age of forty, McIlvaine had relocated to West Virginia, where he first established himself as a writer for such distinguished publications as Century and Harpers. But the wilderness beckoned with its silent, spored temptations, and soon our intrepid explorer was documenting his fungal expeditions in what would become his magnum opus, 1,000 American Fungi.
What separates McIlvaine from lesser mycologists was his insistence on personal experimentation. While others merely observed and classified, our hero consumed with abandon – transforming his own digestive system into a laboratory of mycological discovery!
McIlvaine's literary background infused his scientific writings with a florid prose seldom found in botanical texts.
Consider, if you will, his passionate endorsement of the Oyster Mushroom:
"The camel is gratefully called the ship of the desert.
The oyster mushroom is the shellfish of the forest.
When the tender parts are dipped in egg, rolled in bread crumbs, and fried as an oyster, they're not excelled buy any vegetable and are worth of place on the daintiest menu."
One might imagine the gentleman hosting elaborate dinner parties where unsuspecting guests were served plates of forest delicacies – each morsel having survived his rigorous testing protocols.
Even more astonishing is his description of the ominously named Vomiting Russella, which might send modern gardeners fleeing in terror:
"Most are sweet and nutty to the taste.
Some are as hot as the fiercest cayenne, but this they lose upon cooking.
Their caps make the most palatable dishes when stewed, baked, roasted or escalloped."
Such courage!
Such culinary optimism in the face of a fungus named for its emetic properties!
One wonders how many uncomfortable evenings followed such experimental suppers.
Beyond his mycological adventures, McIlvaine possessed a poet's soul, as evidenced by his verse "Our Church Fight," which reveals a man who found more harmony among the silent mushrooms than within human institutions:
"I'm that nigh near disgusted with the fight in our old church,
Where one halfs 'g'in the t'other, an' the Lord's left in the lurch,
That I went an' told the parson if he'd jine me in a prayer,
We'd slip out 'mong the daisies and' put one up from there."
Perhaps there is wisdom in McIlvaine's preference for the company of fungi over feuding parishioners. At least mushrooms maintain a dignified silence even as they are being classified, consumed, and chronicled.
For the modern gardener considering a foray into mycology, let McIlvaine's intestinal fortitude serve as both inspiration and cautionary tale. One might admire his adventurous spirit while sensibly consulting modern field guides before adding woodland findings to one's dinner menu.
