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One to avoid: Friday's food quotation

The New Scientist cites a case of three campers in Scotland who mistook Cortinarius speciosissimus for chanterelle. Two victims had to get a kidney transplant.

From www.ibiblio.org

Some unusual foods from Truman Capote: Friday's quotation

When she [Ottilie] opened the sewing basket, she made a sinister discovery: there, like a gruesome ball of yarn, was the severed head of a yellow cat. So, the miserable old woman was up to new tricks! She wants to put a spell, thought Ottilie, not in the least frightened. Primly lifting the head by one of its ears, she carried it to the stove and dropped it into a boiling pot: at noon Old Bonaparte sucked her teeth and remarked that the soup Ottilie had made for her was surprisingly tasty.

The next morning, just in time for the midday meal, she found twisting in her basket a small green snake which, chopping fine as sand, she sprinkled into a serving of stew. Each day her ingenuity was tested: there were spiders to bake, a lizard to fry, a buzzard’s breast to boil. Old Bonaparte ate several helpings of everything. With a restless glittering her eyes followed Ottilie as she watched for some sign that the spell was taking hold. You don’t look well, Ottilie, she said, mixing a little molasses in the vinegar of her voice. You eat like an ant: here now, why don’t you have a bowl of this good soup?

Because, answered Ottilie, evenly, I don’t like buzzard in my soup; or spiders in my bread, snakes in the stew: I have no appetite for such things. Old Bonaparte understood; with swelling veins and a stricken, powerless tongue, she rose shakily to her feet, then crashed across the table. Before nightfall she was dead.

Truman Capote, 'House of Flowers'