KEBABBLE Turkish delights can be deadly
By Fazile Zahir
FETHIYE, Turkey - As the leaves across Turkey change to muted yellows and vivid
reds, the onset of autumn brings its own perils. All over the country families
are heading out with woven baskets and the best intentions to go mushroom
picking.
Wild mushrooms are at their most prolific in spring and autumn and Turkey has a
strong tradition of picking them. The variety of fungus on offer is quite
staggering, but favorite edible mushrooms are white truffles, morels and cintar
(a salmon-colored open umbrella type).
Mushrooms are miracles of nature. They bear no flowers and contain no
chlorophyll. Their nutritional value is high compared to
green vegetables and in terms of fleshiness and aroma they are highly important
in the world of gastronomy. The secret ingredient is the glutamate acid they
contain which is the natural form of the monosodium glutamate so commonly used
as a flavor enhancer in Asian-Pacific dishes.
However, the dangers of this innocent activity are high and this week the
Istanbul Province Health Directorate felt obliged to issue a warning to
everyone on the hunt for wild fungi. In the last week in their area alone 72
people have been admitted to accident and emergency for mushroom poisoning and
of these 11 are still receiving treatment in hospital. They warned consumers
not just about the dangers of gathering their own champignon, but also
against buying unpackaged or loose mushrooms and hastened to add that the cost
of treatment was high and the results not guaranteed, especially in cases of
high toxicity.
The great difficulty the Istanbul Province Health Directorate faces is that in
western and northern Anatolia and on the Black Sea wild mushrooms are looked on
as an added and valuable part of village diets, and mushroom consumption is
common in rural areas throughout the autumn season.
Despite this they are rarely seen in city bazaars and only a few restaurants
ever include them on their menus. In Istanbul, at the Sunday outdoor market in
Balat (where emigres from the Black Sea area of Kastamonu settled) and in the
Kasimpasa area there are sometimes cintar for sale. On the whole, if you want
wild mushrooms then you have to find them yourself. Former rural dwellers who
have recently moved to big cities still forage for mushrooms in the outlying
areas of Istanbul but the mushrooms they recognize as edible from their home
areas may well be dissemblers. So many wholesome mushrooms have poisonous
dopplegangers that mistakes are easy to make.
Yellowish cap colors on some varieties of the Fly Agaric are similar to the
edible Caesar's mushroom (Amanita caesarea), which is considered a delicacy in
Italy. Another edible yellow capped mushroom occasionally confused with yellow
Amanita muscaria and Amanita pantherina varieties are the yellow blusher
(Amanita flavorubens). Orange to yellowy orange A muscaria and A pantherina may
also be confused with the blusher (Amanita rubescens) and the honey mushroom
(Armillariella mellea). White to pale forms of A muscaria may be confused with
edible field mushrooms (Agaricus spp) and young (button stage) specimens of A
muscaria have also been confused with edible puffballs.
The most dangerous mushroom around Istanbul is the Amanita Pantherina, known in
English as the Panther Cap or False Blusher - due to its similarity to the True
Blusher - and in Turkish as Koy Gocuren (Village Collapser) and deli
mantar (mad or wild musroom). Panther caps contain muscarine which
causes vomiting, sweating, diarrhea and tears and can in large enough
quantities causes the lungs to fail.
It is also extremely dangerous to dogs who for some reason often find it
deliciously enticing and the result can be brain death within an hour. Plant
and fungus poisonings account for around 6% of total poisoning figures in
Turkey and is especially high amongst children between two and eleven in rural
areas (the ages when eating something you found is so appealing). In addition
to panther caps other dangerous Amanita mushrooms include the terribly
poisonous death cap (Amanita phalloides), the fool’s mushroom (A Verna)
and the Fly Agaric (A muscaria). Ingestion of any of these even in
fairly small doses, say six or seven mushrooms, leads to severe poisoning.
Adverse reactions with the genus Amanita is common in Turkey because mushrooms
are cooked before they are consumed and though many other types of mushrooms
lose their toxins if they are processed by heat, Amanita's don't.
Mushrooms have three main toxic effects. Some mushrooms affect the nervous
system and these effects are seen within three minutes to three hours after
ingestion. If timely treatment is not provided the heart and respiratory organs
fail. Other mushrooms adversely affect the liver and these generally manifest
within six to 15 hours, 70% of these cases are fatal. Another group of
mushrooms causes hemolysis, that is to say they break open red blood cells and
allow haemoglobin to leak out into the plasma around the cells creating
coagulation disorders. To put it another way, they melt blood. Anemia develops
after 24 hours and is terminal in 20% of cases.
General symptoms to look out for after eating wild mushrooms include (but are
not limited to) nausea, vomiting, diarrhea sometimes with blood in it, excess
saliva, stomach ache, muscle cramps, sweating and uncontrollable tears, blurred
vision, dizziness, confusion, staggering, sleepiness, hallucinations, low blood
pressure, bad pain, fainting and coma-like states. The best treatment for
mushroom poisoning is to act with speed in getting the victim to a hospital.
The importance of rapid diagnosis is paramount, victims who are hospitalized
and given aggressive support therapy almost immediately after ingestion only
have a mortality rate of 10%, whereas those admitted 60 or more hours after
ingestion have a 50% to 90% mortality rate.
The most recent fatalities were on October 19, when mother and father, Bekir
and Kamile Tosun, with their daughter Guleser and four-year-old grandson Emin,
picked mushrooms from their garden in Eber, Afyonkarahisar, in western Turkey.
Neighbors noticed their distress and they were taken first to their local state
hospital in Cay and after emergency treatment here moved to Kocatepe University
Hospital for specialist treatment. Despite the best efforts of doctors, Bekir
Tosun died on the October 20 and his daughter on October 21.
Grandmother Kamile and Emin are both still in serious conditions, and in an
added tragic twist for this unlucky family the now deceased Guleser’s own
husband died four years ago, also of food poisoning.
Fazile Zahir is of Turkish descent, born and brought up in London. She
moved to live in Turkey in 2005 and has been writing full time since then.
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