Field Mushroom

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

field mushroom Agaricus campestris, for many people the ‘only’ wild mushroom to be eaten, is common in spring and autumn in grassy fields, especially where cattle graze, in Europe, N. America, China, Australasia, S. Africa, and temperate zones generally in northern and southern hemispheres. It is highly edible, and serves as the archetypal mushroom for this and other purposes in occidental countries. The cap, measuring up to 10 cm (4"), is white to pale brown; the stem relatively short; and the gills at first pink and later brown.