A pictoral guide to buggy mushrooms
People often ask, Are buggy mushrooms safe to eat?
The general answer is yes
, but there are a couple caveats. One is, of course, that bugs are kind of gross and no one wants to look at them in their dinner. Another is that bugs are followed by bacterial rot and mold, which can be dangerous. Food poisoning can happen from rotten mushrooms just as well as with any other food. I have set my own thresholds of what I am and am not willing to eat. These ideas are not evidence-based; they are just my aesthetic sense of what seems safe and not too creepy to eat.
This is an excellent example of a borderline bolete. The bugs have definitely gotten to this. They have gotten fairly big - you can tell by the size of the holes. But, the mushroom around the holes is still white. There is no sign of decay. I sliced this one and put it in the dehydrator. Fairly thin slices will let the bugs dry up and fall through the screen of the dehydrator.
This one is a bit further gone. Note that the bottom edge of the flesh, next to the pores, is starting to crumble. This is probably still perfectly safe, but I elected to toss it to leave room in the dehydrator for better specimens.
Definitely bad. There is hardly anything left of this stem - just a few long fibers and lots of bugs.
This is a great example because it has regions which are still in really good shape, and other regions which must be tossed. Note the discolored, crumbling flesh on the edges of the cap that are in the center, and the same kind of crumbling at the bottom of the stem. The opposite edge is almost untouched.
I've trimmed away the nasty quadrant. What's left has some bug holes near where the pores attach, but this is going to be just fine in the dehydrator.
By contrast, although this specimen looked and felt much like the last one from the outside, on the inside it was still perfect. This would be fine, even to serve to guests. (The fact that it's been previously knawed by a slug is of no concern.)
Mold is bad, but not all molds are equal. This is Hypomyces, the Bolete Eater mold. It is completely harmless to humans, but will ruin a good bolete collection in very short order. Although others report eating it, I trim off the infected bits with a good margin.
I would definitely cook these up for myself in pasta or a curry, but if I were cooking for guests, I would carefully cut along the bug tunnels and make sure any creepy crawlies were removed... or put these in the dehydrator and choose better specimens for direct consumption, which is what I elected to do here.