Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Vermont Bar Journal, Spring 2017, Volume 43, No. 1 | Page 9

JEB: Was your major at Cornell related
to agriculture?
ARM: I went to Brown as an undergrad.
At Cornell, I was working for the Depart-
ment of Horticulture and was directing a
mushroom research project and directing
the McDaniels Nut Grove project for a year
or two.
JEB: So you left the Nut Grove to come
to law school. Was that part of the grand
plan or it just happened?
ARM: It sort of just happened that way,
I would say. I went to Vermont Law School
which has a stellar reputation for environ-
mental law –it was ranked #1 again this
year!
JEB: Excellent!
ARM: That was part of what was a con-
nection between my environmental inter-
ests and my greater interest in conserv-
ing landscapes that yield these products
that I love. There was a connection there
in terms of that spirit of conservation and
wanting to prepare myself to have tools to
conserve through law and policy.
JEB: And Vermont has a lot of nature!
So let’s talk about Vermont mushrooms.
I have found morels before, and I guess I
didn’t realize how brave I was to try them,
but my understanding is that the morel is
fairly simple. I know there is a dangerous
lookalike, but if it’s not completely hollow,
it’s probably not a morel. Is that how that
works?
ARM: I hesitate to provide any sort of
general rule, because you really have got
to see everything in person. There are very
dangerous lookalikes to the morel, but if
you know what you are doing and if you
can really confirm that it is completely hol-
low from tip to tail, it’s probably a morel.
Yes, the hollow cavity that is contiguous
throughout the whole interior is a crucial
ID feature to rule out some very nasty loo-
kalikes including the Gyromitra false morel
which contains a chemical used in rocket
fuel.
JEB: Rocket fuel --that does sound dan-
gerous!
ARM: In some mushroom loving coun-
tries, because there are many of those in
Eastern Europe and Asia, some false mo-
www.vtbar.org
rels may be actually cooked and boiled
through multiple changes of water to get
rid of these nasty toxins until it becomes
“edible,” however that practice is not rec-
ommended and can result inhaling some
nasty fumes if you are not careful.
JEB: You’d have to really love those
mushrooms to do that. I had a friend once
who just loved the taste of barracuda and if
you eat them when they are small enough
you will be fine, but if they are over a cer-
tain age they are toxic, and you immediate-
ly have to your stomach pumped. I think
it happened to him maybe 4 times but he
just couldn’t stay away from the barracuda,
so I guess you have to love morels to take
that chance.
ARM: Yes, I would not put myself in that
risk-taking camp, even though I love mo-
rels so much, I am a bit of a connoisseu r,
a snob. I have very specific list of probably
15-20 species, maybe even 10 that I really
adore and favor, and though I am adven-
turous, I am always extremely safe and cau-
tious. Part of the joy for me is to never have
to worry about being poisoned, just to
know that with 100% confidence, as confi-
dent as I would be as distinguishing an ap-
ple from an orange, that I can tell a Chan-
terelle from a false Chanterelle or a Jack-o-
lantern poison look-alike. I think that to get
to the point where you are absolutely posi-
tive in what you are eating is safe, and that
it is also delicious is what I find the most
enjoyable. I love to have that level of confi-
dence and mastery.
ARM: I am sure she wasn’t thrilled with
it, though she did appreciate my gener-
al love of the woods and nature. I think I
probably reassured her that it was my way
to marvel at the natural world and it wasn’t
about eating things for the table. She took
comfort in the fact that I never actually ate
any wild mushrooms until I got much older
and gained the confidence to do so prop-
erly.
JEB: So, maybe I shouldn’t have started
with morels then! Not so easy. I love them,
and spring is coming so morels came to
mind since they are so delicious, but how
about the giant puffball? Now my under-
standing about that one is that you cannot
be mistaken, if you find a large white vol-
leyball in the field in Vermont, you can eat
that, if it is solid.
ARM: Yes, as long as you don’t have an
allergy and as long as you cook it, and as
long as it is still ripe and fresh. There are
still some caveats there, but yes, the gi-
ant puffball is a very distinctive life form. It
looks like a volleyball….
JEB: It kind of tastes like one too!
ARM: Yes, exactly, it tastes and looks
like a volleyball. Not one of my favorites.
JEB: It’s kind of like tofu, it tastes like
whatever you put it in?
ARM: Right. You still have to make sure
it’s bigger than your fist, to rule out look-
alikes, and that it is solid white on the in-
terior with solid white firm flesh. Even a
good mushroom obviously can get rotten,
just like good meat can go foul, so even
if it’s an edible species, you will want to
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • SPRING 2017
9