wild foods movement

No country is perhaps richer in esculent Funguses than our own ; we have upwards of thirty species abounding in our woods. No markets might therefore be better supplied than the English, and yet England is the only country in Europe where this important and savoury food is, from ignorance or prejudice, left to perish ungathered.
In France, Germany, and Italy, Funguses not only constitute for weeks together the sole diet of thousands, but the residue, eitehr fresh, dried, or variously preserved in oil, vinegar, or brine, is sold by the poor, and forms a valuable source of income to many who have no other produce to bring into the market. Well, then, may we style them, with M. Roques, "the manna of the poor." To call attention to an article of commerce elsewhere so lucrative, with us so wholly neglected, is the object of the present work, to which the best possible introduction will be a brief reference to the state of the fungus market abroad.

A Treatise on the Esculent Funguses of England, C.D. Badham, 1863.