One day Pachi (a very rude Vasconian guy from northern Spain) does an appointment with a friend to go out to look for mushrooms.

As they were doing so, the friend suddenly says:

"Look Pachi, a gold "Polex" watch!"

and Pachi replies:

"Look, Josechu, leave it alone. When we go out to look for mushrooms we look for mushrooms and when we’ll go out to look for "Polexes" will look for "Polexes"!"

Even though people use to tell every edible gill-bearing fungi, "mushrooms", there are many and each of them bears its own name.

I used to pick up, usually in the mountains near Madrid, two kinds of them. The Lactarious Delicious which is an unmistakable species due to its orange color and green staining of all parts, and the presence of vivid carrot-colored milk, and the Agaricus Campestris or Field Mushroom.

As the market price of the first rose sharply, and people left by millions for the fields looking for them, I had to learn new species. For instance, the Macrolepiota Procera or Parasol Mushroom, very common in that area (many times I got some of them of an umbrella size of 30 cm (more than 1 foot)). Pretty good simply fried with salt. The Coprinus Comatus, very good. If you find any of these, pick it up and rush home. It becomes liquefied in few hours.

The Phallus Impudicus, which shape I am not going to reproduce here.

If you want to know about it buy any book on mushrooms (I strongly recommend the one from the National Audubon Society). This way two things could happen; you will waste about 20 bucks or you will learn some Latin.

The best and the worst belong to the same species. They are the Amanita Cesarea (the best, very uncommon) and the Amanita Phalloides or Death Cap, which is often fatal and like any bad thing, very common.

If you were so lucky as to find something like these, pick them and eat them as soon as possible. They are very good!

Amanita Phalloides or Death Cap. The most dangerous. Up to short time ago mortal, now very toxic.*

* (In the last few years, new discoveries in the field of medical treatment led to classify them from mortal to very toxic).

 Time later, the same rude Vasconian guy runs across a friend and the friend asks Pachi:

"Hey Pachi! How about your wife?" and Pachi replies:

"Oh!, Poor woman, she died"

"She died?" Asks the other surprised "of what?"

"Oh, by eating mushrooms" Pachi answers.

"Oh, I’m very sorry!" The friend exclaims

"Don’t worry!" Pachi says: "I got married again".

The time passes and after a long while they run again each other.

I am not going to transcribe here the conversation they held by being the same as the one above. In brief, Pachi’s 2nd wife died by eating mushrooms and Pachi got married again.

As the time passes (that stupid time is always passing. I would like to have a word with Albert Einstein if he were alive) they run once again across each other.

The first Vasconian asks Pachi about his wife and Pachi replies she died.

"By eating mushrooms!" says the first confident of himself .

"Oh! no!" Pachi answers "of spanks because she did not want to eat mushrooms!"

The Agaricus Campestris, which is its Latin name, but is best known as Meadow Mushroom or Field Mushroom among other local names. It is one of the several edible species of the family "Agaricaceae". It is a spring fungi, but being artificially grown with commecial purposes you can find them all year around in the market.

In the springtime the grow many very quickly in any meadow where the cows live, and if you look for them where the cows use to do their most prominent "needs" you will find the bigger and better ones.