How these
rank and provocative Excrescences are to be [32]treated (of themselves
insipid enough, and only famous for their kindly taking any Pickle or
_Conditure_) that they may do the less Mischief we might here set down.
But since there be so many ways of Dressing them, that I can incourage
none to use them, for Reasons given (besides that they do not at all
concern our safer and innocent _Sallet_ Furniture) I forbear it; and
referr those who long after this beloved _Ragout_, and other
_Voluptuaria Venena_ (as _Seneca_ calls them) to what our Learned Dr.
_Lyster_[33] says of the many Venomous _Insects_ harbouring and
corrupting in a new found-out Species of _Mushroms_ had lately in
deliciis. Those, in the mean time, which are esteemed best, and less
pernicious, (of which see the _Appendix_) are such as rise in rich,
airy, and dry [34]Pasture-Grounds; growing on the Staff or _Pedicule_ of
about an Inch thick and high; moderately Swelling (_Target_-like) round
and firm, being underneath of a pale saffronish hue, curiously radiated
in parallel Lines and Edges, which becoming either Yellow, Orange, or
Black, are to be rejected: But besides what the Harvest-Months produce,
they are likewise rais'd [35]Artificially; as at _Naples_ in their
Wine-Cellars, upon an heap of rank Earth, heaped upon a certain supposed
_Stone_, but in truth, (as the curious and noble [36]_Peiresky_ tells
us, he found to be) nothing but an heap of old _Fungus_'s, reduc'd and
compacted to a stony hardness, upon which they lay Earth, and sprinkle
it with warm Water, in which _Mushroms_ have been steeped.
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