Poisonous Mushrooms Death: Chef And Assistant Die In Australia

CANBERRA, Australia -- A chef and assistant from China died after eating poisonous mushrooms in a meal they prepared for a private dinner at a restaurant in Australia's capital.

Chef Liu Jun, 38, and his female kitchen hand Tsou Hsiang, 52, died from liver failure at a hospital Tuesday night after eating death cap mushrooms on New Year's Eve at Canberra's Harmonie German Club.

The two prepared the deadly stir fry in the kitchen of the club's Chinese bistro, but club manager Mick Thamer said Friday that the meal had not been available to the public.

Liu's friend Tom O'Dea said the chef picked the mushrooms himself, mistaking them for edible straw mushrooms.

A third person who shared the dinner with Liu and Tsou was discharged from hospital Tuesday.

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Comments

[Pali Dumtur]

12:34 PM on 01/10/2012

We had some 10 to 15 Thai immigrants here who ate Death Angel at a dinner. The hospital was overwhelmed. That's a lot of dialysis machines! I believe they recovered. They were lucky that it was caught early.

[yeti7]

10:41 AM on 01/09/2012

not much of a chef. poor guys

[LibertarianCentrist]

09:33 AM on 01/09/2012

The man is a chef, he should know better.... unless you are a mushroom expert, or they are a easily recognizable species like a Morel or a Puffball, don't mess with it!!! Wow... It's the ultimate Darwin test.

[Warren Yuill]

06:26 AM on 01/09/2012

Everything in Australia is poisonous.

[MSROADKILL612]

09:35 AM on 01/10/2012

silly comment

[Warren Yuill]

01:56 PM on 01/10/2012

What, me worry?

[k s lavida]

07:35 PM on 01/08/2012

I have mushroom guidebooks that warn you... the reason the death cap is so dangerous is that it looks like a common white button (meadow) mushroom, the kind you buy in stores. But the spores are a different color (if you take a spore print) and the death cap grows on pine. Not a safe bet either way. I only eat mushrooms I pick myself if they're a variety that never looks like a death cap. The honey mushroom, which is in that family of humongous (mile-long) organisms, is good eating. Likewise some boletes. But if it looks like a store mushroom, watch out!

[Cunningham]

10:16 PM on 01/08/2012

I pick morels, oysters, puffballs, calf brain, and shaggy manes. Those are plenty for what we need, they're all easy to identify, and they all taste so good.
I stay away from the boletes because I just don't want to take a chance on getting a nasty tasting one or one that'll make me sick.
My friend and I always look forward to Spring 'cause it's shroomin' time.

It's horrible that the chef and his assistant didn't know what they had before eating the mushrooms. Amanitas are frightening 'shrooms.

[Pali Dumtur]

12:22 PM on 01/10/2012

My dad used to tell my neighbor which mushrooms he could eat safely and which ones he could eat only once. So far everybody is fine :D

[Bergen2]

04:33 PM on 01/07/2012

Have always been interested in picking mushrooms for consumption and then an article like this comes along.

[iLdoRight]

12:19 AM on 01/08/2012

Since watching a recent program on PBS by a Dr. Joel Fuhrman (can Google) that said eating one button mushroom a day with greens and or green tea would reduce a woman's chance of get in breast cancer by 89% I got some dried mushrooms from a place on the net called LifeGourmetShop.com and they seem quite nice, the white buttons taste better than the ones fresh ones I got from the store to compare. They expand a lot when simmered for a while. I ordered 4 of the cheaper kinds just to see what some were and to get the free shipping with a $50 order. I figured if they will help a woman not get breast cancer they might help me not get some sort of cancer too. My dad use to hunt mushrooms and if he wasn't sure if they were safe he would cut off a small piece and eat it and if it didn't make him sick he would eat the rest of it. Me, I will stick to the ones that I can buy dried that have a good track record.

[xenubarb]

05:06 PM on 01/09/2012

Your dad was lucky. A nice cut of amanita won't kill you for several hours as it destroys your liver and kidleys. Worse, they taste really nice fried in butter.

[MSROADKILL612]

09:33 AM on 01/07/2012

dont quote me - but i read the biggest living organism, is a single underground fungi in a US forest - thousands of acres of it

cool aye?

[Crushedknee]

01:37 PM on 01/07/2012

Sorta stretches the definition of an organism a lot. Shares same dna in a continuous mass but it does not function as a singular organism in other ways..Nutrient gathering,information and reproduction are not continuous over the entire mass. In that way it functions more like thousands of individual Fungi clusters that are reproducing thru cloning.

[MSROADKILL612]

08:38 PM on 01/07/2012

Ta - i did say dont quote me :)

[Ohio Republican]

02:57 PM on 01/07/2012

There is debate because of the way mushrooms colonize. Generally, the largest organism is considered to be an aspen tree that has a massive root system (all stemming back to a single parent tree) that will send up new (genetically identical) shoots anytime the tree is damaged.

Mushrooms are definitely among the most useful. They can even detoxify oil from soils extremely quickly.

[MSROADKILL612]

08:45 PM on 01/07/2012

ta for the fyi. yep - so simple yet effective - what else eats orange peel - ok theres marmalade - but u see my point

the forest floor of a tropical rainforest/jungle is fascinating - sounds u would like it

[MSROADKILL612]

08:42 AM on 01/07/2012

Speaking of not mushroom & xmas

joseph in bethlehem

cmon mate - u gotta have a room - my wife is heavily pregnant

not my fault!

not my fault either!

[MSROADKILL612]

08:29 AM on 01/07/2012

few things

they didnt say how fast it happened?

canberra is no hick town - it would have been a top hospital

so u have death caps in usa also?

huge problem in russia - a national hobby & they die like flies

strange nature bothers with such overkill - sure - make em sick so they leave u alone - but whats the point of being super deadly if not going to eat the corpse?

still seems incredibly stupid for an alleged chef to pick them wild in a strange country w/ no language skills. I wonder if the girl even knew they were not from a kosher source.

RIP, but am glad it wasnt a client, & i suspect that was a special chance at some point.

[nature nut]

10:27 AM on 01/07/2012

Yeah, I always wonder about that, too. How does toxicity benefit an organism? What's poison ivy's purpose in causing a rash?

And what are death cap mushrooms? Are they Amanita phalloides or what we in the states call death angel?

[cptlinger]

12:18 PM on 01/07/2012

The poison is not meant exclusively for humans; it's a neurotoxin capable of killing or disabling most any mammal.

Death cap is typically yes, a. phalloides, though I've heard it used to refer to a handful of deadly amanitas. Death angel is another amanita.

It was incredibly stupid to pick these. In his defense I'm fairly sure they're not native to China...but a good general rule of mushroom hunting is that unless you're quite experienced and take the time to properly spore print and identify what you're eating, don't go hunting amanitas. Other poisonous species tend to be very distinguishable from edibles.

[MSROADKILL612]

12:37 PM on 01/07/2012

not sure we r connected - can see the logic of stay away - but some critters & organisms can kill many horses when main threat is a crow or something - seems overkill

re death cap in us - am asking - not telling - sounds they do exist there - sounds right - probably older than the continents

[salamanca1]

06:43 PM on 01/07/2012

That particular type of mushroom essentially kills your liver, so you die in a matter of days.

[MSROADKILL612]

09:06 PM on 01/07/2012

seems that way - am in oz so more coverage & i followed the story sort of - 2 days sounds right - but 1 died a fair bit sooner than the other - maybe he/she ate more?

[Ani Singh]

07:35 AM on 01/07/2012

Ohh..... no it is risky travel by hoot baloons. God save people.

[jbad]

12:19 AM on 01/07/2012

See, the Chinese Chefs don't understand what the assistants are there for. You let the assistants taste or eat the dinner and if they're still standing THEN you eat.

[wonderfullone]

08:32 PM on 01/08/2012

That's where he F up.--------------may they rest in peace.

[chopprdq]

04:33 PM on 01/06/2012

Guess they wish they were majic mushrooms now,,,,,

[Backtalkisahorse]

11:29 AM on 01/07/2012

too soon....

[Bergen2]

04:27 PM on 01/07/2012

Can you stir fry those?

[Sandra Stipp]

04:19 PM on 01/06/2012

My family went out into the woods for generations and collected mushrooms. We still do today. None in my family (that I know of) ever died from a mushroom or picked the wrong one. It beats me how a chef could mistake a deadly mushroom from an edible mushroom. Well, I guess we will never know will we. RIP.

[french queen13]

11:46 PM on 01/06/2012

Because they were Chinese, and familiar with the straw mushrooms that are very common in Asia. They didn't know about the Australian death cap mushrooms, which look very similar.

[MSROADKILL612]

07:35 PM on 01/09/2012

others may know, but i suspect there are differences - like where they grow - soil vs roots etc.

[Ohio Republican]

03:11 PM on 01/07/2012

Different regions grow different varieties of mushrooms. Your family may be lucky and live in a place where poison mushrooms aren't common.

[frug]

04:18 PM on 01/06/2012

We used to gather wild mushrooms as youngsters, relying on the unreliable folklore that the good ones had gills of tan to brown. The lighter the underbelly, the more dangerous the mushroom, all the way out to the chalk white Destroying Angel which, it was said, allowed victims who had ingested one to delightfully recover from acute gastrointestinal agony just before killing them.

Today, my enjoyment of mushrooms is guided by the more reliable aphorism "There are old mushroom hunters, and bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old bold mushroom hunters." The only boldness I indulge these days, is in choosing between whole or sliced ones in the produce section.

[Backtalkisahorse]

11:30 AM on 01/07/2012

nice post

[Steven Curtis Lance]

12:44 AM on 01/08/2012

I remember my undergraduate botany professor telling me to do all my mushroom gathering in the produce section, just in case.

[xenubarb]

05:15 PM on 01/09/2012

Then you have never tasted Agaricus augustus, the Prince of edible mushrooms. Grocery store button's super big wild brother, it has a hint of almond and is eminently delicious.

[Reality always bites]

04:01 PM on 01/06/2012

Chinese Chefs move to Australia. Was it because there was not Mushroom back home?

[MSROADKILL612]

07:38 PM on 01/09/2012

very fungi