THE FOLK-NAMES OF MUSHROOMS : languagehat com languagehat.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from languagehat.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In Search of Mycotopia by Doug Bierend. It has been adapted for the web.
To tell someone that you’re into mushrooms is to invite a raised eyebrow and perhaps some cautious questions about your relationship to the law: “So are you into
magic mushrooms?” Many mycophiles have learned to keep ready the reply, “
All mushrooms are magic!”
But before May 13, 1957, fungi and illicit activity weren’t so intuitively linked in the average American’s mind. That’s when the nation was introduced to the existence of so-called magic mushrooms by way of an article in
Life magazine penned by one R. Gordon Wasson, former vice president of public relations for J.P. Morgan & Company. The article, titled “Seeking the Magic Mushroom,” recounted his 1955 visits to Huautla de Jiménez, a small village in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.