Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: Re: storing mushrooms
From: RR04@bunny.gte.com (Rob Robertson)
Date: 18 Aug 92 15:02:18 GMT
Organization: GTE Laboratories


In article <BsxrzD.MLn@news.cso.uiuc.edu> berger@atropa (Mike Berger) 
writes:

> >jmctigue@stern.nyu.edu (J C. McTigue) writes:
> 
> >> I have heard a lot of different things both on and off the net about
> >> storing shrooms.  Can someone with experience please tell me a good
> >> (preferably easy) way to store fresh shrooms?

Then I wrote:

> >This past weekend I attended a seminar by Terence McKenna, Author of 
> >'Food of the Gods' and 'The Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide', among others. 
> >I asked him about storage techniques, specifically canning, and his 
> >response was, "Yeah, that sounds interesting. I don't see why not, and if  > >you are able to do that I would be interested in hearing about it. What    > >Ifind effective is drying the mushrooms and storing them in 5 gram           > >quantities using those plastic freezer wrap devices, like Seal-a-meal, and  
> >putting them into the freezer. They should be good for several months. The  
> >ideal situation would be to store them in a nitrogen atmosphere, though."
> 
> >So.... if you can find the Grower's Guide (penned under the pseudonyms 
> >'Oss' and 'Oeric') I'm sure you'll have enough info to get started.

Then Mike Berger wrote:

> There are a couple of glaring irregularities here in your post.  For
> one thing, Oss and Oeric were laboratory assistants at Sandoz Drugs
> in Switzerland.  They developed the techniques for cultivating
> psilocybin mushrooms in the laboratory so Albert Hofmann could
> identify and extract (and ultimately synthesize) the psychoactive
> ingredients.  He did this using samples supplied by R. Gordon Wasson.
> 
> Now, I know that Oss and Oeric are real.  They've never mentioned
> Terrence McKenna.  Are you sure HE's not the fictional character?
> 
Thanks for the clarification on the names Oss and Oeric. I was wondering 
how he came up with those names. In the book "The Magic Mushroom Grower's 
Guide" Mr, McKenna mentions the work of Hofmann and Wasson, and may have 
even dedicated the book to them. I'm not sure if Terence is a fictional 
character or not; he LOOKED incredibly real and sounded pretty real (real 
bizarre, actually), but I concede the point that I, along with the other 
40 or so people in attendance may have been suffering from some kind of 
collective hallucination, but I'm a simple man with a simple mind and I 
immediately assumed that it was in fact a real person that I was talking 
with.

> Now, as for the rest of the post, "I don't see why not" doesn't
> appeal to me as a very credible response.  Proper canning requires
> a lot of heat, and I'm not convinced you will retain the psychoactive
> properties of the mushrooms in canning.

Okay, maybe it's not a credible response. Let me state right out front 
that I really don't have an interest in canning mushrooms. I've never 
grown, dried, freezed, or canned psilocybin mushrooms and that was not my 
motivation for attending the seminar. I saw the question on the net and 
during a break in the action I asked him about it. He didn't contemplate 
it deeply; it was a casual question and he gave me a casual response. I 
tried to convey that feeling in my original post. I still don't care about 
canning 'shrooms; I just passed on the information for people to do with 
as they pleased. If that's not good enough for you then, well, I don't 
know, go wring out your panties and look into it yourself.
 
> I have found freezing without killing the enzymes that break down
> the mushrooms to be futile.  By the time your mushrooms have dried
> enough to freeze safely, they will have already lost much of their
> potency.
> 
> Using a heat sealer (AFTER preserving them) and a nitrogen atmosphere
> are both good, however incomplete, ideas.
>
Looks like you should go back to the drawing board then, buckaroo. Again, 
I personally have no experience here but considering the fact that Terence 
has been growing, drying, eating and writing about 'shrooms for about 25 
years I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
 
> I hope you didn't pay anything for this seminar.
> --
I did pay for this seminar and it was a blast. A mellow, bucolic setting, 
great food, and stimulating conversations and story-sharing with a group 
of open-minded, intelligent, beautiful people made for a very worthwhile 
weekend.

...and before you respond with some kind of flame about how imprecise and 
(gasp!) unscientific my posts are, I suggest you sit in the woods for a 
few hours, read some Walt Whitman or something, and reconsider. I enjoy 
being foolish and Lord knows this newsgroup needs at least a little every 
now and then.

Peace, Love and Harmony to you and yours, me and mine,
                                                                           
             Rob

Rob Robertson
GTE Laboratories          (617)466-4144 vox
40 Sylvan Rd.                (617)890-9320 fax
Waltham, Mass. 02254
"There is nothing new under the sun..."