Take a look at this correction from today’s Contra Costa Times, which serves parts of the San Francisco East Bay. It’s tucked in the bottom right corner of page A15, along with a black & white photo the size of a postage stamp. (The online version does not include the photo.)

“A photo of this mushroom on the cover of Wednesday’s Food section was incorrectly identified as a giant morel. It’s actually either a death cap or a death cap look-a-like, a mushroom ethical foragers never harvest due to the danger of confusion. These mushrooms grow all over Bay Area hills and are responsible for 95 percent of wild mushroom-related deaths.”

Oops.



Every year around this time Bay Area newspapers report on folks who find and eat some delicious mushrooms, only to end up in fulminant liver failure. If they’re lucky they get an emergency liver transplant. If not, they die.

I just hope that everyone who has started scouring the hills for tasty morels on the basis of the large color photo on the cover of Wednesday’s food section also happens to see that tiny correction on page A15.

—Bob Finn

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