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OceanofPDF.com
COOKING
WITH
MUSHROOMS
A Fungi Lover’s Guide to the
World’s Most Versatile, Flavorful,
Health-Boosting Ingredients

ANDREA GENTL

ARTISAN BOOKS | NEW YORK

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As soon as I left home in my teens, I
cooked. I cooked to remind myself where
I came from and to bring people together.
Cooking for people felt natural and
became a way to share with others.
Whatever the occasion, we gathered: for
dinners in cramped apartments, on fire
escapes, by reservoirs deep into the
night, in fields upstate, and at raucous
dance parties in the woods. Through our
early twenties and into our thirties, after
9/11 and into our forties, through
marriages, births, divorces, deaths of
friends, grandparents, and parents, and
through one global pandemic, we
gathered. This book is dedicated to all the
people—both family and chosen family—
who have shared a meal, cooked
together, and leaned on one another in
hard times. The table kept us grounded.
This book is for all of those people, but
especially for my forever dining
companions—Lula, Sam, and Marty, my
true north.

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OceanofPDF.com
CONTENTS

Introduction

1 THE MUSHROOMS
2 ALWAYS ON HAND IN THE LARDER
3 MUSHROOMS IN THE MORNING
4 MIDDAY MUSHROOMS
5 MUSHROOMS FOR COCKTAIL HOUR
6 DINNER FROM MUSHROOMS
7 THE SWEETEST MUSHROOMS

Source Guide
Recommended Reading
Acknowledgments
Index

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OceanofPDF.com
INTRODUCTION

I am a mushroom enthusiast and an avid home cook, a

curious market scavenger, and a keen observer of the
natural world. In my work as a photographer for the past
thirty years, I’ve had the great privilege to travel the globe.
Many of my recipe inspirations and their flavor profiles come
from those travels. After a childhood spent traipsing through
the wild, I rediscovered the untamed and varied world of
mushrooms—the diverse, healthy, adaptogenic magic
mycelia of the fungi kingdom—through photography.
I have always been a bit obsessed with mushrooms. I drew
them constantly as a kid. Later in my twenties, I came to love
them even more through my work. I am captivated by beauty
in nature and food, and mushrooms have been my constant
muse. In photographing the work of some of the world’s best
chefs and many of their incredible cookbooks, I gained an
invaluable education, picking up something from every chef I
have worked with as I peppered them with questions. I am
drawn to books that tell a story, and to chefs with a strong
point of view. Truthfully, I started my culinary education, like
so many people, at my grandmother’s knee. Through her, I
possess a strong sense of ancestral taste. Anchovies, capers,
garlic, olives, salty pecorino, almonds, and bitter greens are
the foods in my blood.
While photographing Baking with Julia, some twenty-five
years after dipping biscotti in my nonna’s espresso, I started
my culinary photographic education. Julia Child came to our
loft in SoHo for lunch on one of the shoot days. She was
marvelous. A few weeks later, when we went to Cambridge to
shoot on location, I was struck by the simple beauty of her
kitchen. Every tool had a place. Her hands reached
instinctively for a whisk as she showed us the drawings that
outlined each tool. The kitchen was absolutely unassuming,
plain by today’s somewhat ostentatious, Instagram-ready
standards, really. Everything was comfortable, and I got the
sense that Julia liked to cook with her hands, whisking
cream, kneading bread, and mixing pastry dough (I still make
the pie pastry from that book). I feel, though I can’t say for
certain, that she had no use for machines. I didn’t see many
in her kitchen. Many of the chefs I have worked with have
this in common with Julia, a sense of what is tactile and what
is possible to make with their own hands. I’ve picked up this
sense from Julia and the other chefs and try to use my hands
whenever possible in the kitchen. I find cooking by hand to
be meditative and prefer a whisk to an electric beater any
day.
Years after working on Baking with Julia, I traveled to
northern Sweden, where I experienced one of the best meals
I have ever eaten, at Fäviken. I spent three days at the
restaurant trailing its chef, Magnus Nilsson, in the kitchen,
the garden, and the woods. His food was deeply delicious,
wildly creative, hyperlocal, slightly uncomfortable, and
completely sustainable. He cooked with the foods that
surrounded him from the field, forest, and mountain. The
pine, spruce, mushrooms, and moss—all of it was new to me
in the culinary realm but wildly familiar to me visually and in
an olfactory sense. Many of the ingredients reminded me of
western Massachusetts, where I grew up. My family’s very
small farm was surrounded by ancient oaks, sugar maples,
and soft willowy pines, and was the perfect environment for
mushrooms to grow. I spent the better part of my childhood
outside, roaming the woods and fields around our home, my
pockets filled with bits of sticks, wood, moss, hay,
mushrooms, acorns, and pinecones. I was attracted to many
of these things because of how they smelled, and those
smells still have the most intense links to memory for me.
I attribute my strong connection with nature to all the
time I spent exploring the woods in those days, identifying
plants and discovering wild foods. The more time you spend
in nature, the more you notice the cycle of seasons, and the
more you connect. In my neighborhood, almost everyone’s
mother was an herbalist. Talk of plants surrounded us
constantly. At Fäviken, I experienced a “remembering.” My
whole world changed after that trip. I came home and
immediately started making finishing salts with pine and
spruce, and fermenting flowers. I began making butter, the
memory of which was embedded in my youth, having grown
up with two Jersey cows that provided us with enough thick
yellow cream to make the most delicious butter and clotted
cream for shortcakes.
When I moved to New York City for school, I left the
woods, the farm girl, and the smell of hay and wet leaves
behind (though hay and wet leaves are still two of my
favorite smells!). After Fäviken, I realized my somewhat
hippie upbringing was right here with me the whole time.
Once these olfactory memories were triggered, I started to
understand food in the “time and place” realm, and began
my blog, Hungry Ghost Food and Travel, shortly thereafter.
The blog served as an exploration of wild and gathered foods
from around the globe, travel stories, personal essays,
recipes, and tributes to my ancestors.
As a photographer, travel for work has influenced the way
I eat and cook more than anything else. Wherever I go, I
explore local markets and look for ingredients to squirrel
away in my bag and bring home to incorporate into my
cooking. I talk to people I meet along the way about food,
foraging, and native ingredients. I usually come away with
new knowledge and inspiration. At home, I’m a regular at my
local farmers’ market year-round. I usually go to the market
without any idea of what I am going to make, letting the
ingredients inspire me. These days the most inspiring
ingredient is the mysterious and magical mushroom!
In the past few years, there has been a notable shift in
cultivated mushroom availability. Gone are the days of
supermarket button mushrooms under plastic wrap as the
sole option for the curious home cook. Specialty mushrooms
once available only to foragers and chefs are now widely sold
in nearly every size, shape, and color. Farmers’ markets are
teeming with piles of puffy lion’s manes, maitakes, and
oyster mushrooms (in yellow, blue, gray, and pink), and many
grocers stock multiple varieties beyond the ubiquitous white
buttons. The wellness boom has catapulted dried
mushrooms like chaga and reishi into the adaptogenic
stratosphere, lending their signature scents and flavors to
everything from our morning tea to our evening cocktails.
As for eating mushrooms, my relationship with edible
fungi has been gradual. For the first twenty-odd years of my
life, the only mushrooms I encountered at the dinner table
were cremini, pickled and served on my grandmother’s
antipasto plate, or sautéed as a component of beef
Bourguignon, made famous by Julia Child’s black-and-white
television show, one of the only programs I was allowed to
watch. Julia had an infectious enthusiasm for mushrooms.
Then there were my grandmother’s holiday mushrooms—
again, cremini stuffed with sautéed stems, bread crumbs,
parsley, copious amounts of garlic, white wine, and pecorino.
Those mushrooms became the inspiration for my
Thanksgiving stuffing; it’s essentially the same flavor profile,
just with a larger proportion of sourdough bread.
In my late twenties, while on assignment in northern
California, I met and photographed Connie Green, the
famous wildcrafter and supplier of wild mushrooms to Bay
Area chefs. We trailed her one morning through the woods
near Sea Ranch, as she collected an enormous variety of
edible mushrooms. I had never seen such a basket of
diversity. I can’t remember if she found any candy cap
mushrooms that morning, but I recall her telling me that
they had a sweetness that smelled of maple syrup, perfect
for desserts. After our woods walk, we ate piles of
mushrooms sautéed in butter and shaved raw mushrooms
with salty butter on crusty toasted bread.
Years later, I struck up a friendship with some wildcrafters
I met at the New Amsterdam Market in Lower Manhattan.
Nova Kim and Les Hook, Vermonters with over eighty years
of wild food gathering experience between them, frequented
the Sunday market. The first time I came upon their stall, I
was mesmerized by the hen of the woods (also known as
maitake), bearded tooth (also known as lion’s mane), chicken
of the woods, and matsutake mushrooms, each fresh from
the earth, bits of sticks and leaves still stuck to their stems.
The mushrooms they offered struck a familiar chord, and I
suddenly realized I had seen them throughout my whole
childhood in the woods around my home. Nova gave me all
kinds of helpful advice on how to cook them. I started
coming back every week, and she and Les would reach
below their table to pull out a box of the most beautiful
mushrooms they had saved for me. I started cooking with
them—dehydrating some, making stocks with others,
weaving mushrooms into my everyday cooking. I was lucky
enough to spend some extended time with them, at which
point I relearned how to see the woods and the incredible
bounty it offers. I was reminded of the beautiful cycle of life
and death in nature that mimics our own. Today, thanks to
the enormous growing interest in mushrooms, I can find
many of the varieties they introduced to me at farmers’
markets, specialty shops, and grocery stores.
Mushrooms are widely hailed as the new superfood; they
have many health benefits, and their texture and flavors are
rich enough to substitute for meat in many dishes, and to
accompany meat, poultry, fish, and eggs in many others.
Dried and powdered, they take on a rich umami flavor and
depth.
We are now in on the secret that most of the world has
known forever: Once you start cooking with mushrooms, you
will never stop. Throughout the pages of this book, I share
my favorite ways to use mushrooms in drinks, broths, soups
and stews, bread, breakfast dishes, salads, and sandwiches,
and twists on classic dishes such as risotto and lasagna. I
hope you find these recipes intriguing, and are as captivated
by the mushrooms themselves—with their infinite variations
in shape, texture, color, and aroma—as I have been since
childhood, and continue to be.
OceanofPDF.com
1 THE MUSHROOMS
MUSHROOM TERMINOLOGY

NOTES ON FRESH MUSHROOMS

GROWING YOUR OWN MUSHROOMS

COOKING MUSHROOMS

MUSHROOM VARIETIES

NOTES ON DRIED MUSHROOMS

HOW TO DRY MUSHROOMS

HOW TO MAKE MUSHROOM POWDER

In this book, I am focusing on nearly two dozen of the more
accessible, cultivated varieties as well as a few wild
mushrooms. Most of the mushrooms can be found at your
local farmers’ market or grocer. You can, of course,
substitute your wild finds (once properly identified, of
course) into many of these recipes, but remember that not
all mushrooms taste the same. Some are mild, others are
briny, and some have strong, earthy flavors. Get to know
your mushrooms before choosing to swap one in for another.
The beautiful maple taste and smell of candy caps, for
example, works best in desserts, so they are not a good
substitute for other mushrooms in savory dishes.
Mushrooms are an incredibly versatile ingredient. They
are beautiful, flavorful, and mysterious, and can be humble
or elevated. A simple dish of mushrooms sautéed in butter is
one of the most flavorful things you can eat. Mushrooms can
be free when found in nature, sometimes inexpensive
depending on the variety, or worth their weight in gold.
Mushrooms around the world are anticipated as a sign of the
changing seasons; a giant plate is cause for celebration. They
are elusive, and do as they wish, popping up one year here
and the next year there. They grow in forests and fields and
on trees alive and dead. They appear in recently disturbed
earth after logging and forest fires. Mushrooms come in all
shapes and sizes, with varieties that hide in broad daylight,
and others that glow in the dark. Mushrooms can range from
a dark inky indigo to white, black, brown, gray, orange, and
all colors in between. Mushrooms communicate with each
other, and some varieties can camouflage themselves to
hide from predators.
 Notably, mushrooms are not plants. It is said they are
more human than the plant world, but they exist in a
kingdom by themselves, the wild and magical kingdom of
fungi. We know that all mushrooms are not edible, but how
did we get to this point of knowing? I imagine, though I can’t
know, it was through trial and error or perhaps some innate
sense that early humans had with regard to what to pick and
what not to pick; perhaps they watched carefully to see what
animals ate. I have great respect for mushrooms. I only eat
what I am absolutely certain is edible.
Indigenous peoples have a long-standing relationship
with mushrooms, specifically with culinary usage and
ceremonial purposes. Many of the world’s ancient cultures
have been wise to the merits of eating fungi for thousands of
years. Generally speaking, mushrooms are considered to be
healthy. They are often adaptogenic and high in protein and
minerals, as well as B and D vitamins.
MUSHROOM TERMINOLOGY

Adaptogen: An adaptogen is any substance from nature—usually

roots, herbs, or fungi—that can aid the body’s response to external
stressors. Many mushrooms are considered adaptogenic, including
chaga, cordyceps, reishi, lion’s mane, and shiitake (see Note).

Fungi: The biological kingdom made up of any number of spore-

producing organisms that feed and grow on organic matter; this
includes mold, mildew, mushrooms, and yeast.

Fungiculture: The cultivation of mushrooms and other fungi.

 A Note on Gathering Wild Mushrooms
The mushroom kingdom boasts more
than a hundred thousand known
varieties, and countless unknown ones,
too. Many are prized for their distinct
flavors, textures, shapes, sizes, and
colors, and are sought after for healthful
and medicinal purposes. In many parts
of the world, gathering mushrooms is as
much a routine as ritual. The hunt for
mushrooms is an adventure, but
admittedly one that’s best left to those
with the experience and know-how to
avoid picking anything questionable.
“Look-alike” varieties resemble
common varieties but are not safe to
eat, and many wild mushrooms contain
toxins that can cause illness or, in
extreme cases, death. In this book, I
recommend some commonly cultivated
mushrooms that can also be found in
the wild. However, this is not a wild
mushroom book. If you choose to
collect mushrooms, you must learn how
to identify them.

Inoculate: To introduce a mushroom spawn into a growing medium.

In the natural world, this is often a log or stump; indoors, inoculation
occurs on a material known as substrate.

Mycelium: The vegetative body of fungi, which includes a vast

network of very fine, thin strands known as hyphae.
Mycology: The study of the fungi kingdom, which includes
mushrooms, mold, mildew, and yeast.

Spawn: In the cultivation of mushrooms, spawn is used in much the

same way as seeds are used to grow vegetables. This is the
mycelium itself that’s grown indefinitely on a substrate.

Mushrooms can only be identified by

doing a proper spore print. If you would
like to learn more about collect-ing wild
mushrooms, there are some great
publications in Recommended Reading.

Spores: Spores are what mushrooms release in the reproductive

process; the best way to identify mushrooms in the wild is to do a
spore print, letting the spores fall onto a piece of paper placed just
beneath the cap for several hours until a pattern and color of the
spores are presented. Every mushroom has a unique configuration,
by which the mushroom can be identified.

Substrate: The material on which to grow cultivated mushrooms is

called substrate; in the wild, that includes rotting logs and other
organic materials. For cultivation purposes, substrate can be
cardboard, sawdust, or grains such as rye, wheat, or millet.
NOTES ON FRESH MUSHROOMS

On Shopping for Fresh Mushrooms

For the freshest and widest variety of mushrooms, I highly
recommend getting to know the mushroom vendors at your
local market. Ask lots of questions; vendors are most often
happy to share their knowledge with fellow mushroom
lovers. You can learn a lot about how to prepare and cook
mushrooms, and what to look for in the market at what times
of year, by talking to the sellers.
When shopping for fresh mushrooms, use all your senses
to determine freshness. Touch them if possible; mushrooms
should feel heavy in the hand, alive, plump, and firm. Avoid
anything with soft, damp, or slimy spots, or mushrooms that
feel dried out or wrinkled. Notice their colors, which should
appear uniform throughout the cap; steer clear of
discoloration. Sniff the mushrooms, to make sure the smell is
earthy. They can sometimes smell funky, which does not
always mean they are rotten. (Avoid mushrooms that smell
like ammonia, a sure sign that they have turned.) Look to see
that the caps are tightly closed and the gills (if the
mushroom has them) appear fresh (gills are a sign that the
mushroom has reached peak maturity). Try to buy
mushrooms of the same size within each variety, so that
they’ll cook evenly (you can always chop or tear large ones
as needed before cooking, however).
Cultivated mushrooms are pretty widely available at
supermarkets and groceries; look for organic options
whenever possible. The most common varieties, often
wrapped in plastic, include button, cremini, portobello, and
shiitake. I would avoid buying any pre-cut mushrooms or
anything wrapped in plastic, which suffocates the
mushrooms. There really is no good way to tell how long
they have been wrapped up. Instead, look for supermarkets
or grocery stores that have open bins of mushrooms.
Choosing your own is always a better option. Specialty
grocers and Asian markets are likely to have a wider
selection of other varieties, especially maitake, oyster,
beech, wood ear, and enoki. You will sometimes find these
wrapped in plastic; if that is the only way to buy them, check
to ensure that they are firm and fresh with a pleasant aroma.

On Pricing
As you explore the world of edible mushrooms, you will soon
realize that prices can vary greatly. Some varieties are
infinitely more expensive than others. If you find that one
variety is prohibitive for a certain recipe, please explore
another variety. I have given suggestions for swaps
whenever possible. Another option is to buy a smaller
quantity and fill in the remainder with a more affordable
type. This way, you’ll get a chance to experience the
difference in flavors and textures of each mushroom.
Mushrooms are incredibly versatile, and experimentation by
way of swapping varieties is always encouraged.

On Dirt
For the most part, when buying fresh cultivated mushrooms,
you won’t have to worry much about removing dirt.
Mushrooms from wildcrafters are a different story. They may
have a bit of dirt on them from the woods or fields, but they
are not “dirty.”
Washing mushrooms is a very polarizing topic. Because
mushrooms are like sponges and absorb any moisture they
come in contact with, they should be cleaned just before
cooking. I like to clean wild mushrooms with a small
paintbrush that I keep in my kitchen. (A dedicated soft
toothbrush works fine as well.) I stick to the hard-and-fast
rule of never washing mushrooms, whether they are
cultivated or wild.
Some people feel fine about giving mushrooms a quick
rinse. If you must do so, you can gently but quickly plunge
them into a bowl of lukewarm water and swoosh them
around, then set them on a clean, dry tea towel. Blot them
dry right away, to remove any remaining water. The key is
not to soak them, lest they take on water and turn mushy or
slimy.
Once they have been brushed or plunged, trim the
mushrooms of any woody ends and give them a good
brushing to remove any remaining dirt, leaves, sticks, or
debris, and, of course, any insects! (Humans are not the only
ones who enjoy a nice mushroom meal.) If you find that the
mushrooms still seem dirty, give them a gentle wipe with a
clean, just-damp tea towel. Cultivated mushrooms are
generally quite clean. Trim any old or woody stems and cut
away any remaining substrate (the material in which the
mushroom was grown).
On Prepping
The prep work really depends on the mushroom variety and
the dish that you’re making, but generally, you’ll want to trim
off any woody ends or hard stems. Maitakes and lion’s mane
are gently torn and shredded by hand rather than sliced;
they tear naturally along the fiber of the mushroom. Large
mushrooms are often halved or quartered. Any especially
woody stems, like those on chestnut and shiitake
mushrooms, should be trimmed away and saved for stock.
You can throw them in a quart (1 L) jar in your freezer and
just keep adding to it until you have enough to make a stock
or you can add them to a chicken or vegetable stock for
more flavor. Some recipes call for only the caps, even if the
stems are edible; you can save those stems for stock, too.

On Storing
I learned about keeping mushrooms in paper bags sorted by
variety from Les and Nova of Vermont Wildcrafters.
Mushrooms are super happy in paper bags and terribly
unhappy when stored in suffocating plastic, which causes
them to become slimy and quickly rot.
Keep the bags open or very loosely closed at the top, and
store them in the refrigerator for no more than a couple of
days. If you must buy mushrooms in plastic-wrapped
containers, replace the plastic with paper as soon as you get
home.
GROWING YOUR OWN MUSHROOMS

If you’re curious about mushroom varieties that you can’t

find at your local grocers or farmers’ markets, try a
mushroom growing kit. In the past few years, growing
mushrooms in yards and community gardens, in raised beds,
or even in mulch piles and other warm spots has become
super popular. My Instagram feed is populated with many
small mushroom growers; during the early days of the
pandemic, the popularity of grow kits hit a feverish spike.
I love mushroom kits and have cultivated many types of
oyster mushrooms (pictured left), cordyceps, and lion’s mane
successfully in my kitchen. During our lockdown time in
upstate New York, I had several varieties growing in big
blocks all down my staircase. Growing mushrooms is like
having magic at your fingertips. The blocks seem inactive at
first and then suddenly they flush and grow right before your
eyes. They can double in size in a day. Keep an eye on them if
it is especially humid, as they can become heavy with
moisture and rot quickly.
Mushroom kits are an easy way to familiarize yourself
with different varieties of mushrooms, to learn about how
they grow, and to see if you might want to grow them on a
larger scale. If you do, there is a plethora of information
available in books and videos and online, and, of course, you
can always chat with mushroom farmers.
Designed to grow on kitchen counters or outside, the kits
are made of substrate blocks (consisting of cardboard,
natural wood shavings or dust, grains, or some combination
of materials) implanted with the mycelium, or spawn. The
blocks are wrapped in plastic. After unpacking the kit and
cutting open the plastic, you mist it with water regularly. The
mycelium responds immediately to oxygen and humidity,
spurring growth. Over the course of just a few weeks,
depending on the type and kit maker, the mushrooms should
be ready to harvest and cook. You should be able to get two
or three flushes (crops) from one kit, and maybe a few more
afterward. After the last flush, take the kit outside and leave
it in your garden or under some ferns. It will likely keep
sprouting mushrooms, though it can be a matter of months
rather than weeks for them to colonize and fruit. Many
people place the blocks in the compost, where they will
continually sprout once they colonize.
There’s an abundance of places to buy the kits these
days, locally and online. Oysters in blue, pink, and golden
hues are a nice option for those new to mushroom growing,
and those who live in varying climates. They’re considered
fail-proof. Some are so vigorous that they may even start
growing before you open the box and the plastic wrapping.
Lion’s mane kits are also great for beginners, and they are so
otherworldly in appearance and divine in taste. Shiitakes are
best grown on logs, as in nature; the process takes longer
than growing mushrooms from kits indoors, perhaps even a
year or more. They will seem completely inactive and then
suddenly flush with pounds of shiitakes.
COOKING MUSHROOMS

Generally speaking, mushrooms are best eaten cooked, even

briefly. All mushrooms cook best at high heat, with lots of fat
(I generally cook them in butter, olive oil, or ghee). The heat
helps rid the mushrooms of excess water as it concentrates
their flavor. Mushrooms release their own liquid as they
cook, then absorb the fat to make up for that lost moisture,
becoming intense flavor bombs in the process.
Take care not to crowd the pan when cooking
mushrooms. You want to give them room to cook on their
own and release water, so they sear rather than steam (it’s
the mushy squeakiness that you’re avoiding). For the best
flavor and texture, brown them just until you can smell the
mushrooms. Avoid salting mushrooms too early, as it will
draw out moisture and turn them rubbery instead of nicely
seared and caramelized.

Sauté: Sautéing is one of the easiest and most familiar methods for
cooking mushrooms. Start by heating up butter, olive oil, or ghee in
a skillet, then add whole, sliced, or torn mushrooms. Cook by tossing
the mushrooms until they are fragrant and just beginning to turn
brown, and then add garlic and any other aromatics, stirring to
incorporate them. Continue to cook until the mushrooms are
browned.

Dry sauté: This method for cooking mushrooms is less well known,
but it shouldn’t be. To dry sauté means to cook in a hot skillet
without adding any fat or other ingredients. Heat the skillet over
medium-high until it is quite hot, then add chopped, torn, sliced, or
whole mushrooms in a single layer. As the mushrooms start to
release water, their flavors become more intense, concentrated, and
“mushroomy” than when cooked with fats and aromatics. You can
flavor them after dry sautéing with fats such as butter or olive oil,
sauces like soy, or sweeteners like maple syrup. I use the dry sauté
method to cook the mushrooms for the relish in the grilled cheese
sandwiches.

Roast: Roasting is one of my favorite ways to cook mushrooms, as it

is very hands off. Roasting concentrates the flavor of mushrooms. I
generally roast mushrooms in a sheet pan or a large cast-iron skillet.
I add some fat, either olive oil, ghee, or butter, and a few seasonings,
depending on the flavor profile I’m after.

Sear: Searing mushrooms is a great way to get a crispy texture and

golden-brown color. The key is to cook them in a skillet over
medium-high heat and in a single layer, leaving them undisturbed
and flipping halfway through. This usually takes about 3 minutes on
each side, depending on the type and size of mushroom. Make sure
to coat the pan with enough butter or oil, to keep the mushrooms
from sticking as they develop a nice crust. Be sure to salt at the end,
so you don’t draw water out of the mushrooms too early.

Grill: Mushrooms are delicious grilled over a flame, where they can
take on a little smoky flavor. I start by oiling the grill or grill pan and
getting it quite hot. Then I brush the mushrooms with a little olive
oil, melted butter, or ghee, and place them over the flame or in the
hot grill pan. The mushrooms will sputter a bit as they release
moisture and take on a nice char.
SAUTÉ
DRY SAUTÉ
SEAR
ROAST
MUSHROOM VARIETIES

This book is dedicated to a mere handful of the thousands of

mushroom varieties that exist. What follows is a list of the
mushrooms I use most in my cooking and for the fresh and
dried powders and pastes that make up my larder. It is not an
exhaustive list, just the mushrooms that I rely on most for
their distinct flavors, textures, and immune-boosting
qualities. Most can be found at specialty grocers and
farmers’ markets year-round. The recipes and flavor profiles
can be applied to many more varieties than I have covered
here; this is meant to be a small exploration into the vast
world of fungi. As a visual person, photographer, and cook, I
am drawn to the beauty of the more aesthetic varieties, like
maitake, oyster, lion’s mane, enoki, reishi, and shiitake, which
all happen to have some of the best flavors. Truth be told,
however, these varieties barely hold a candle to the
incredibly wide variety of wild mushrooms, which include
inky blue caps, vibrant orange lobsters, and mushrooms that
look like delicate branches of coral plucked from the depths
of the sea, to name just a few of my many favorites. The
world of wild mushrooms is something to be studied and
revered, respected, and approached with caution until you
can call yourself an expert.
 BEECH

Beech
Beech mushrooms are named for the tree on which they
commonly grow in clusters. The small, slender mushrooms
are widely available in white and brown varieties. Brown
beech mushrooms are the color of field mice, while the white
ones resemble a chalky lime wash. Beech mushrooms are
mild in flavor, a little sweet, slightly earthy, and nutty when
cooked. They are a great candidate for pickling because they
retain some crunch. They originated in Asia and are now
cultivated in many parts of the world and sold fresh at many
supermarkets, specialty grocers, and online. White beech are
often packaged and labeled “Bunapi,” a trademark name for
a patented variety from the Hokuto Corporation. They are
commonly used in soups, stews, and stir-fries, and take well
to roasting and sautéing.
 CANDY CAP

Candy Cap
Candy cap mushrooms are small and delicate, with a sweetly
aromatic, maple-forward flavor profile and deep maple color.
They are often used to flavor desserts and drinks, but in their
dried form, they’re used in savory dishes as well. Their smell
is not as strong when fresh, but drying them releases their
distinctly sweet, powerful fragrance, with notes of brown
sugar and jaggery. Growing primarily along the West Coast in
California and Oregon, candy caps grow in patches of moss,
as well as in rotting matter and on hardwoods.
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 [115] Fondo Vaticano, 4428, p. 114. This treatise is the same
as the De mineralibus published along with the De Secretis at
Venice (? 1501) by Bernardinus de Vitalibus.
[116] Speciale ms. No. vi. See the work by Sac. I. Carini, Sulle
Scienze Occulte nel Medio Evo, Palermo, 1872. ‘Kalid Rex’ was
Khaled ben Yezid ibn Moauia, and ‘Morienus’ was Mar Jannos, his
Syrian master.
[117] Gayangos, i. 8. Eighty thousand books are said to have
been burned in the squares of Granada alone.
[118] In the editions of 1622 and 1659, Argentorati. It has
been stated that the Quaestio Curiosa is a chapter taken from the
Liber Introductorius of Michael Scot. The alternative title of that
work, Judicia Quaestionum would seem to favour this idea, and
may in fact have suggested it. But an examination of the Liber
Introductorius (ms. Bodl. 266), which I have caused to be made,
proves that the statement referred to is without foundation. It
was advanced in a paper read before the Scottish Society of
Antiquaries by Mr. John Small, and printed in their Proceedings,
vol. xi. p. 179.
[119] See the note to p. 75 supra.
[120] Inf. iv. 131.
[121] In the Theatrum of Zetzner there is a tract: ‘Aristoteles
de perfecto Magisterio,’ and the Bibl. Naz. of Florence has a ms.,
‘De Tribus Verbis,’ ascribed to the same author.
[122] Sic pro indagine, v. cod. xvi. 142 of the Bibl. Naz.
Florence, where this treatise is given to Alfidius, i.e. Al Kindi. In it
occur the significant words: ‘est (alchimia) de illa parte physice
quae Metheora nuncupatur.’
[123] No. 6514.
[124] ‘Penitus denegatam,’ see infra, p. 89.
[125] It is remarkable in this connection that
‘Transubstantiation’ was finally imposed on the faithful by the
Lateran council of 1215. The term had not been previously used
in theology. This was the very epoch of Michael Scot and of the
introduction of alchemy in the West.
[126] ms. Ricc. L. iii. 13. 119, p. 35vo.
[127] ‘In quo talia continentur, Intencio, Causa Intencionis et
Utilitas,’ etc.
 [128] See Appendix, No. iii.

[129] Pp. 192vo.-195vo.

[130] The Paris ms. 6514 has these words: ‘Magister Galienus
scriptor qui utitur in Episcopatu est alkimista et scit albificare
eramen ita quod est album ut argentum commune.’
[131] Pp. 190ro.-192vo.
[132] Pp. 185vo.-190ro.
[133] Manuel Comnenus reigned as Emperor of the East from
1143 to 1180, while Frederick i. was Emperor of the West from
1152 to 1190. This would seem to indicate the twelfth century as
the time when these works of the Pseudo Archelaus were
produced. It is curious to notice that Manuel was the Emperor
who suffered defeat by sea at the hands of George of Antioch the
Sicilian admiral (Gibbon, chap. lvi.) This brave seaman was the
same who founded the library of the Martorana in Palermo (see
above, p. 25), and enriched it with the literary spoils of his
conquests. It is highly probable that it was in this way the
scholars of Sicily became acquainted with the Byzantine alchemy.
[134] ms. Ricc. L. iii. 13. 119. pp. 19vo.-29ro.
[135] Titles resembling this are not uncommon in the literature
of alchemy. Thus the Paris ms. 6514 has two treatises, both called
Lumen Luminum and both ascribed to Rases. The latter of these,
the Liber Lumen Luminum et perfecti Magisterii, is that which has
been printed by Zetzner in the Theatrum Chemicum, under the
name of Aristotle. It contains, as we have already observed, the
Liber XII. aquarum and other material derived from the Liber
Emanuelis. The former treatise bearing the name of the Liber
Lumen Luminum in the Paris ms. (pp. 113-120) is remarkable on
account of the words with which it closes: ‘explicit liber autoris
invidiosi,’ which Berthelot notes, but does not attempt to explain.
The Mappa of the Pseudo-Archelaus mentions the ‘Liber
invidiosus’ (‘quia liber iste invidiosus est ab omnibus hominibus’),
but what may be the true reading of the matter is found in the
Liber Dyabesi or book of the distillation of the land-tortoise (ms.
Ricc. p. 4ro.) where these words occur: ‘Omnia ista pondera
fuerunt occulta a philosophis, et dederunt nobis alia pondera …
quia fuerunt invidiosi,’ i.e. unwilling to make public the secrets of
their art. In later days the title Lumen Luminum is found in use by
Raymond Lull and his school.
 [136] Liber Luminis Luminum, ii. 1.
[137] Corpus Christi ms. cxxv. pp. 116-119.
[138] In ms. Ricc. L. iii. 13, 119, No. 37.
[139] See on the whole subject the Annales Minorum of
Wadding, especially vol. i. p. 109. In vol. ii. p. 242, we find the
reproof addressed by the Pope to Fra Elias. The words referred to
above are these: ‘mutari color optimus auri ex quo caput (i.e.
Franciscus) erat compactum.’
[140] For example, ‘quaedam gumma quae invenitur in alumine
de pluma, et ista gumma est rubea, et gumma quae invenitur in
alumine rubeo et ista gumma est preciosa et bona valde.’ The
word becomes intelligible when read as ‘gemma.’
[141] Such as ‘Yader saracenus,’ ‘Arbaranus,’ ‘Theodosius
saracenus,’ ‘Medibibaz,’ and ‘Magister Jacobus Judaeus.’ The name
of the place ‘halaph’ which is probably Aleppo, and of the herb
‘carcha’ point in the same direction.
[142] Bibl. Naz. Flor. ms. xvi. 142, see supra, p. 79.
[143] Romanus de Higuera, a very doubtful authority.
[144] This village gave name to another Moorish writer, Abu
Gafar Ahmed ben Abd-el-Rahman ben Mohammed, also
surnamed el Bitraugi. He died in 1147 and his fame survives as
that of the author of an encyclopedia of science.
[145] For the unfavourable judgment of Mirandola on this
astronomer, see infra, p. 143.
[146] See the excellent account in Munk.
[147] Recherches, p. 133.
[148] These are Ancien Fonds 7399 and Fonds de Sorbonne
1820.
[149] ‘Qui vivit in aeternum per tempora.’
[150] There is a copy in the Barberini library (ix. 25 in fol.
chart. saec. xv.) which reads ‘cum abuteo len̄ ite.’ Another at Paris,
mss. lat. 1665 (olim Sorbonicus) has ‘c. Abuteo Levite.’ It would be
rash to conjecture the sense of this curious phrase. It is evidently
a sign of time, and perhaps astrological.
[151] The Barberini ms. (ix. 25) gives 1221 as the date of the
version, but the consensus of the other copies shows this to be a
mistake. Almost all the mss. mention that the work was done at
Toledo.
[152] See the references made to this work of Scot by Albertus
Magnus and Vincent of Beauvais.
[153] For the life and opinions of Averroës, see the excellent
monograph Averroës et l’Averroïsme, which Renan published at
Paris in 1866. I have drawn largely upon it in composing this
chapter.
[154] See infra, p. 128. Nicolas Damascenus was born b.c. 64.
[155] This was purely Alexandrian doctrine: ‘enseñaron Plotino,
Porfirio y Iamblico, que, en la union extatica, el alma y Dios se
hacen uno, quedando el alma como aniquilada por el golpe
intuitivo.’ Pelayo, Heterodoxos Españoles, vol. ii. p. 522.
[156] Albertus Stadensis speaks of a heretical sect which
appeared at Halle in 1248. They abused the clergy, the monastic
orders and the Pope, but their preachers exhorted them to pray
for the Emperor Frederick and his son Conrad, qui perfecti et justi
sunt. Among the Albigenses and Cathari generally the word
perfecti was used in a technical sense to indicate those who had
been received into complete fellowship as opposed to the
credentes who were still on probation. As applied therefore to the
Emperor and his son it would seem to indicate at least certain
leanings to these opinions on Frederick’s part. This might explain
the action he certainly took in trying to detach the Sicilian clergy
from the see of Rome and to set up a national or imperial church
in which he pretended to the earthly headship.
[157] Opera, p. 102.
[158] Averroës, pp. 28, 254, 291.
[159] See ante, p. 18.
[160] This inquiry was afterwards interpreted to Scot’s
disadvantage and in a way that heightened his necromantic fame.
See infra, ch. ix.
[161] See Appendix, No. i. Averroës had maintained in
opposition to Galen that the best of all climates was that of the
fifth terrestrial region: that in which Cordova was situated.—
Colliget, ii. 22. Michael Scot can hardly have shared this opinion.
[162] St. Victor, 171.
[163] De Rossi ms. 354. See ante, p. 20.
 [164] See preface to the De Anima of Avicenna, mss. Fondo
Vaticano 4428, p. 78vo, and 2089, p. 307ro. Jourdain has
reprinted this preface in his Recherches, p. 449, from the mss.
Fonds de Sorbonne 1793 and Ancien Fonds 6443.
[165] Bibl. Rabb. i. p. 7. ‘Eiusdem Avicennae Physicorum lib. iv.,
Magistro Johanne Gunsalui et Salomone interpretibus, No. 449,’
i.e. of the Fondo Urbinate.
[166] Bibl. Española, ii. pp. 643-4. ‘Conhesso’ may be a mistake
for converso. There is reason to think that Andrew had embraced
the Christian faith.
[167] ‘Michael Scotus, ignarus quidem et verborum et rerum,
fere omnia quae sub nomine ejus prodierunt, ab Andrea quodam
Judaeo mutuatus est.’—Opus Majus. In his Compendium Studii, a
much later work, Bacon repeats the accusation in a milder form:
‘Michael Scotus ascripsit sibi translationes multas. Sed certum est
quod Andreas quidam Judaeus plus laboravit in his.’ It has been
conjectured that Andrew was a convert to Christianity, v. Renan,
who cites the preface to Jebb’s edition of the Opus Tertium of
Bacon. It is curious at any rate that the name given him was that
of Scotland’s patron saint.
[168] Bibl. Max. Vett. Patrum, Lugduni, 1677, vol. xxii. p. 1030.
[169] The letter, namely, of Pope Gregory ix.
[170] Paris, Fonds de Sorbonne 924, 950; St. Victor, 171;
Navarre, 75; Venice, St. Mark, vi. 54; Fondo Vaticano, 2184,
2089, p. 6ro.
[171] See ‘Proviniana’ in the Feuille de Provins for 7 Février
1852; also the Hist. Litt. de la France, xvii. 232; the Bibl. Imp.
Colb. Suite du Reg. Princ. Campan, III. 50ro. and 199vo.; and the
letters of Gregory ix., anni v. 9 kal. Maii (1231 or 1232), anni vii.
kal. Feb., and 3 kal. Martii in the collection of Laporte du Theil.
[172] See ante, p. 6.
[173] Paris, Sorbonne, 932, 943; St. Victor, 171; Ancien Fonds,
6504; Venice, St. Mark, vi. 54.
[174] Vita di Gherardo Cremonense, Roma, 1851. The
distinction between the elder and younger Gerard had been
noticed by Flavio Biondo (1388-1463); by Zaccharia Lilio (obiit c.
1522) and by Giulio Faroldo in the sixteenth century. I have found
the same accuracy in the Risorgimento d’Italia of the Abate
Saverio Bettinelli, which appeared at Bassano in 1786 (vol. i. p.
81). Only foreigners, therefore, seem to have overlooked it.
[175] Compendium Studii, p. 471.
[176] No. 354; see ante, pp. 20, 116.
[177] See the list of mss. already given, p. 123.
[178] De la Philosophie Scolastique, i. 470.
[179] Opera, ii. 140.
[180] Averroës, p. 108.
[181] See Metaphysica, xii. 334.
[182] Avicenna. See Destruction of Destruction, iii. 350.
[183] The doctrine of spontaneous generation, common among
the Arabian Philosophers, and specially taught by Ibn Tofail.
[184] This is a notable saying which may well have given rise
to the legend of a book De Tribus Impostoribus. It was certainly
one of the foeda dicta blamed by Albertus Magnus.
[185] St. Mark, vi. 54 memb. saec. xiv. The De Substantia Orbis
is said to have been completed by Averroës in Morocco in 1178.
[186] Also Fondo Vaticano, 2089, p. 1, with commentary by
Alfarabius.
[187] This title recalls a passage in the De Anima of Averroës
as reproduced by Pendasius: ‘Si intellectus esset numeratus ad
numerum individuorum, esset aliquod hoc (i.e. aliquod
particulare) determinatum, corpus aut virtus in corpore. Si hoc
esset, esset quid intellectum potentia.’
[188] No. 620. See Cat. Gen. des Bibl. des Dep. vol. iii. Paris,
1855.
[189] See ante, p. 125.
[190] Colophon to cod. lxxix. 18 of the Laurentian Library.
[191] See ante, p. 59.
[192] Opus Tertium, Master of the Rolls ed. p. 91.
[193] Compendium Studii, p. 467. The De Plantis is found at p.
83 of ms. Fondo Vaticano 4087.
[194] Namely the novel called Il Paradiso degli Alberti (Bologna,
Wesseloffsky, 1867, vol. ii. pp. 180-217), and No. xx. of the Cento
Novelle Antiche (Testo Borghiniano).
[195] Inferno, xx. 115, 116.
[196] The faja still worn in Spain is a direct survival of this
custom.
[197] According to ecclesiastical reckoning; the direction of the
altar being taken as eastward. The frontispiece reproduces part of
this fresco.
[198] See infra, chap. ix.
[199] The fact that Averroës himself is painted on the opposite
wall holding in his hand the Great Commentary seems highly to
increase the probability that the figure here described was meant
for Michael Scot, the recognised interpreter of that forbidden
philosophy. Averroës occupies a similar position in Orgagna’s
fresco in the Campo Santo of Pisa.
[200] Scot reckoned twelve signs in augury answering to the
twelve celestial houses. Six came from the right hand: Fernova,
fervetus, confert, amponenth, scimasarnova, scimasarvetus; and
six from the left: Confernova, confervetus, viaram, harenan,
scassarnova, scassarvetus. See the Physionomia, chap. lvi.
[201] Unless indeed these, or some of them, should prove to
be merely detached fragments of the Liber Introductorius itself,
like those at Milan, Padua, and Rome. See ante, p. 27.
[202] No. 1091. It is perhaps the same as the Astrologorum
Dogmata, which appears in the lists of Bale and Pitz.
[203] No. 3124. Incipit: ‘Primum signum duodecim signorum.’
Explicit: ‘principio motus earum.’
[204] As a characteristic specimen, we may take the chapter of
the Liber Introductorius on the moon as it is given in the Roman
ms. (Fondo Vaticano 4087, p. 38ro.). It commences thus: ‘Luna
terris vicinior est omnibus planetis.’ Some passages are curious,
as when Scot says that the moon has her light from the sun and
he again receives his ‘a summo coelo in quo Trinitas residet.’ The
heathen, he adds, used to call the moon Diana, and the sister of
the sun, whom they named Apollo. Her proper figure is that of a
virgin with a torch in either hand whereof the flames are triple to
signify the Trinity, that ‘true light which lighteneth every man that
cometh into the world’ (S. John i. 9). ‘Virgil saith of her “tria
Virginis ora Dianae,” that is heavenly, earthly, and infernal. Her
power causes hunters to profit more by night than by day, and
the owl and night-hawk sleep all day that they may follow their
prey by night. Such creatures of the night are hated by the rest
and hate them in return. The wolf hates the sheep, and birds the
owl. This last is of use in fowling when they use a night-hawk.
Builders, too, know that wood must be felled in the wane of the
moon or it will warp.’ It ends thus: ‘Explicit Liber quem edidit
micael scotus de signis et ymaginibus celi, qui scriptum (sic) et
exemplatum fuit per me baltasaram condam (quondam) Domini
Dominici in mcccxx de mense Aprilis Deo gratias Amen.’
[205] Opera Omnia, Bale, 1527. In Astrologiam, lib. viii. chap.
vi. and lib. xii. chap. vii.
[206] In No. 1 of the Cento Novelle Antiche Frederick answers
the ambassadors of Prester John by saying that the best thing in
the world ‘si è misura.’ This may possibly refer to his passion for
mathematics.
[207] mss. of this work are in Paris, Ancien Fonds, 7310; Milan,
Ambrosiana, T. 100; Florence, Bibl. Naz. xi. D. 64, ii. ii. 35, and
Rome, Fondo Vaticano, 2975.
[208] See Narducci’s Catalogue of the Boncompagni mss.,
Rome, 1862.
[209] Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques.
[210] Lay of the Last Minstrel, Author’s Edition, Note 3 I.
[211] Lenormant, Quest. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 144, 145.
[212] Cento Novelle Antiche, No. C.
[213] 22 July 1232. See ‘Ann. Colon. Max.’ in Pertz, Scriptores
Rei Germanicae, xvii. 843.
[214] ‘Physicorum motuum.’ The passage will be found in the
De Utilitate Linguarum.
[215] This city was founded in 1067-68 by En-Nacer ben
Alennas ibn Hammad, who made it his capital.
[216] mss. of the Liber Abbaci are to be found in Florence, Bibl.
Naz. i. 2616, iii. 25, and xi. 21. The first of these has been exactly
reprinted by Boncompagni at Rome, 1857. Other mss. are in the
Boncompagni library, see Narducci’s Catalogue, Nos. 176 and 255.
The most important work on the whole subject is ‘Della Vita e
delle Opere di Leonardo Pisano,’ by Boncompagni, Rome, 1852.
[217] See infra, chap. ix.
 [218] The University Library of Genoa has an interesting ms. (F.
vii. 10), written in Arabic by an African hand. It belonged, A. H.
483, to Judah ben Jaygh ben Israel, servant of Abu Abdallah
Algani Billah, a Moor of Malaga. It contains medical works by
Johannes ben Mesue, Rases, Alkindi, Geber, and others.
[219] For an account of the school of Salerno, see Sprengel,
Versuch einer pragmatischen Geschichte der Artzneykunde;
Carmoly, Histoire des Médecins Juifs, Bruxelles, 1844; and De
Renai, Collectio Salernitana, Naples, 1852.
[220] The De Urinis. See ante, p. 20.
[221] Historia Ecclesiastica, xii. 495. Dempster professed at
Pisa and Bologna between the years 1616 and 1625.
[222] This was Symphorien Champier, physician to Henry ii. of
France.
[223] See the Sibbald Collections, Advocates’ Library,
Edinburgh.
[224] See D’Herbelot. This author was a Jew.
[225] See ante, pp. 20, 151. Further investigation might show
that it was Michael Scot himself who undertook this work for the
Emperor. In that case it would probably be the original from
which the two Italian versions mentioned above were made. Nor
is it unlikely he should have devoted himself to medicine as early
as 1212 considering the nature of the work by Avicenna on which
we know he was engaged in 1210.
[226] In Ideler’s Physici et Medici Graeci Minores, Berlin, 1842,
vol. ii.
[227] Florence, Bibl. Naz. xv. 27, cod. chart. saec. xv.; Naples,
Bibl. Naz. cod. chart. saec. xv. from the Minieri Riccio collection.
[228] Vatican, Fondo della Regina di Svezia, 1159, p. 149. This
treatise closes thus: ‘et istud sufficit tempore presenti facto
urinarum. Finis urinarum Magistri Michaelis Scoti. Incipit Practica
Magistri R. de Parma Medecinarum.’
[229] British Museum, add. mss. 24,068. This is a volume in 8vo
containing a medical collection. It belonged in 1422 to Heinrich
Zenner and afterwards to Magister Wenceslaus Brock. No. 22, at
fol. 97vo, is as follows: ‘Pillulae Magistri Michaelis Scoti, quae fere
competunt omnibus egritudinibus, et non possit scribi earum
bonitas, unde nolo eas amplius laudare etc. Recipe Aloe epatice
optimum, uncias iii., brionie, mirobolonorum indorum, reb.
belliricorum, emblicorum, citrinorum, masticiis, dyagridii, azari,
rosarum, Reubarbari an. unciam i. Confice cum succo caulium vel
absynthii. Dosis sit vii. vel v. Et iste competunt convenienti et
ydonea dieta observata. Et valent iste pillulae contra omnem
dolorem capitis, ex quacumque causa, vel ex quocumque humore
procedat, purgant mire omnes humores, Leticiam generant,
mentem acuunt, visum reddunt et reparant, auditum restituunt,
Juventutem conservant, Scotomiam et vertiginem reparant, canes
(? canities) retardant, memoriam conservant, Emigraneam
depellunt, oculos illuminant, aciem reparant, et in puerilem
etatem reducunt. Et si aliquis humorum est impedimenti in
gingivis et dentibus, medifica[n]t et in soliditatem conservant,
arterias de flemate purgant, Epiglotum et uvam (? uvulam) cum
voce clarificant, appetivam virtutem confortant, Stomachum epar
et splenem coadjuvant. Sonitum aurium et surditatem tollunt,
causas febrium omnino extingunt et auferunt, ascarides vermes
necant, omnibus etatibus et temporibus tam masculino quam
feminino sexui conveniunt.’ In the Laurentian Library, xii. 27. p.
48, I find a similar prescription which may have been given either
by Michael Scot or Master Volmar who succeeded him as court
physician. It is as follows: ‘Pulvis Domini Fred. Imperatoris, valens
contra omnium humorum exceptionem et precipue contra
fleumaticum et melanconicum, ex quibus diuturnae infirmitates
capitis et stomachi habent [?] provenire. Valet quippe contra
defectum visus et stomachi debilitatem cibaria sumpta digeri et
membris incorporari facit, valet contra stomachi ventositatem
Scotomiam ante oculos inducentem, restaurat memoriam
quocumque humore perditum, verum (?) dolorem ex frigiditate
provenientem mitigat. Recipe: Carium, petrosillini anisi, marati,
sexmontani, Bethonice, Cymini, calamite, pulegii, ysopi,
spicenardi, piperis, sal gemme, rute, centrumgalli, herbae regiae,
heufragie, olibani, mastici, croci, mirabolanorum, omnium, et plus
de citrinis, an. ʒ 1. et utaris omni tempore indifferenter. Addenda
sunt ista; Cynamomi, Schināti, maiorane, folii balsamite, mzimi,
(?) cardamomi, galenge, regulitie, an. ʒ 1. pulverizza, et utaris
indifferenter.’ The ms. is in a hand of the thirteenth century. The
Myrobalans, long discarded from the Pharmacopœia, were the
dried fruits of various species of Phyllanthus and Terminalia which
grow in India. They are still used in native practice, especially in
the preparation of the Bit laban, a remedy in rheumatic gout
prepared by calcining these seeds with the fossil muriate of soda.
See Asiatic Researches, xi. pp. 174, 181, 192. The bellirica and
emblica are other species of the same plant, the Terminalia. See
Bauhin’s Historia Plantarum, 1613. The Dyagridium or Dacridium
is an alternative name for scammony. Azarum, the same as
asarum, the Aristolochia. Maratum or Marathrum an old name for
fennel. Reb. is probably the Robes of the early chemical authors
= a vinegar, here impregnated with the active principle of the
fruits prescribed. Cyminum = cumin. Calamita = mint. Pulegium
= pennyroyal, another of the mints. Salgemma = rock-salt. We
shall become familiar with this term in perusing the Liber Luminis
of Michael Scot. Centrumgallus, according to Du Cange, the
common garden cockscomb. Herbia regia, the Ocymum citrinum
or citron basil. Olibanum, frankincense. Galengha, the root of a
species of Alpinia. Regulitia, liquorice. I have been greatly helped
in identifying several of these forgotten simples by the kindness
of Mr. J. M. Shaw, sub-librarian to the Royal College of Physicians,
Edinburgh.
[230] Year viii. of his Pontificate, namely Jan. 16, 1223. See the
interesting article by Milman in the Miscellany of the Philobiblon
Society, vol. i. 1854. He refers to the papers of Mr. W. R. Hamilton
in the British Museum, and especially to vol. ii. pp. 214, 228, 246.
[231] Monumenta, sub anno 1259, Feb. 12.
[232] ‘Quod inter literatos vigeat dono scientiae singulari.’
[233] Theiner, Monumenta, p. 23, ad annum viii. Hon. iii. i.e.
1223.
[234] Declinature noted June 20, 1223.
[235] Milman’s Church History, vol. iv. p. 17.
[236] ‘Nec contentus littera tantum erudire Latina, ut in ea
melius formaretur, Hebraice et Arabice insudavit laudabiliter et
profecit, et sic doctus in singulis grata diversorum varietate
nitescit.’—Hamilton mss. in British Museum, vol iii. p. 57.
[237] He was a Calabrian abbot, who died in 1202.
[238] This author died in 1306.
[239] See Muratori ‘Rerum Italicarum Scriptores,’ viii. (1726) ad
calcem Mem. Potest Reg.
[240] Muratori, Op. cit. ix. 669 B.
[241]
 ‘Quaedam de Te presagia, Cesar,
A Michaele Scoto me percepisse recordor.
Qui fuit astrorum scrutator, qui fuit Augur,
Qui fuit Ariolus, et qui fuit alter Apollo.’

Poem of Henri d’Avranches in ‘Forschungen zur Deutschen

Geschichte,’ xviii. (1878), p. 486.
[242] Vol. x. p. 105. See also the same vol., pp. 101 and 148.
[243] L. ii. xvii. 338, p. 183vo.
[244] Bibl. Univ. No. 1557, p. 43. This ms. is of the fifteenth
century.
[245] ‘Chronica F. Salimbene,’ Parma 1857, pp. 176-177.
[246] Muratori, Op. cit. ix. 660 B.
[247] Similar deceitful prophecies are not uncommon in
mediæval story. Walter Map in the De Nugis Curialium tells how
Silvester ii. was assured by his familiar spirit that he would not
die till he had said Mass at Jerusalem. The prediction was fulfilled,
however, when the Pope did so at the altar called ‘in
Gerusalemme’ in one of the Roman Churches, and soon
thereafter expired.
[248] Muratori, Op. cit. ix. pp. 128 B, 670; and xiv. p. 1095.
Other forms of this word are cerebrerium, celeberium or
cerobotarium. It is of course derived from cerebrum, and the
English equivalent would be brainpiece.
[249] See the Epistolarium of Petrus de Vineis. Jourdain
reprints this letter with a French translation in his Recherches, pp.
156-162.
[250] In 1224.
[251] Frederick sought at Bologna for scholars to fill the chairs
in Naples.
[252] Martenne, ‘Vett. scriptt. et Monumenta,’ ii. 1220.
[253] Opus Majus, pp. 30, 37, ed. Jebbi. ‘Tempore Michaelis
Scoti, qui, annis 1230 transactis, apparuit, deferens librorum
Aristotelis partes aliquas de naturalibus et mathematicis, cum
expositoribus sapientibus, magnificata est Aristotelis philosophia
apud Latinos.’
[254]
 ‘Veridicus Vates Michael, haec pauca locutus,
Plura locuturus obmutuit, et, sua mundo
Non paciens archana plebescere, jussit
Eius ut in tenues prodiret hanelitus auras.
Sic acusator fatorum fata subivit.’

Op. cit. verse 80 et seq.

[255] ‘History of the Rt. Hon. Name of Scot,’ in Lay of the Last
Minstrel, Note W.
[256] The diploma is dated at Melfi on the 9th of August 1232.
The colophon to the copy then made of the Abbreviatio
Avicennae is as follows: ‘Completus est liber Avicenne de
animalibus, scriptus per Magistrum Henricum Coloniensem, ad
exemplar magnifici Imperatoris nostri Domini Frederici, apud
Meffiam civitatem Apulie, ubi Dominus Imperator eidem Magistro
hunc librum premissum commodavit, anno Domini mccxxxii, in
Vigilia Beati Laurentii, in domo Magistri Volmari medici
Imperatoris.’ See Huillard-Bréholles, Hist. Diplom. Frid. ii., vol. iv.
part i. pp. 381-2.
[257] See this poem, canto xxv. oct. 42 and 259. Consult also
Soldan, Magia Antica, and Storia dei Processi di Stregheria, and
Conrad de Marburg.
[258] Illustrium Miraculorum, v. 4. See also i. 33 for another
tale of the same kind.
[259] See Lenormant, La Magie Chaldéenne.
[260] See Wright’s Cat. of the Syriac mss. in the British
Museum. Iamblicus occurs in cod. dccxxix.
[261] I use this word in the general sense then given to it,
which seems to indicate how little the Greek language was
understood in those days.
[262] Said to be written by Norbar the Arab, who compiled it
from many sources in the twelfth century. It consists of four
books: i. De Coelo, ii. De figuris Coeli, iii. De proprietatibus
Planetarum, iv. De proprietatibus Spirituum; and was translated
into Latin by command of Alfonso x. (1252-84). Two mss. of this
version exist in the Bib. Naz. of Florence, xx. 20 and 21. Arpenius
gives some account of it in his ‘De prodigiosis Naturae,’ Hamburg,
1717, p. 106. It is to be hoped it may never be translated into any
modern language.
 [263] As the author of the De Coelo et Mundo, the treatise
most nearly bordering on this magical doctrine.
[264] ‘In quo exposuit secretiora Naturae.’—Opus Majus, p. 37.
[265] That the Arabian magic was familiar to Scot, there can,
however, be no manner of doubt. Take, for instance, the following
passage from the Liber Introductorius (ms. Bodl. 266, p. 113):
‘Puteus, qui alio nomine sacrarius, navigantibus per contrarium eo
quod sequitur caudam scorpionis inter astra, et dicitur poetice
quod Dii prius fecerunt in eo con[junctio]nem et sacrificium, cum
esset locus secretus intrinsecus, et locus plenus spiritibus multe
sapientie, a quorum astuciis pauci evadunt, et ipsi sunt fortiores
ceteris ad opera conjuratorum de omni dum con[junctio]ne
removentur obedientes vate (?) et[iam] ante pyromancie. Illos
libentius convocant contra ceteros, et sibi reperiunt in agendo
valentiores, set ipsi sunt multis penis ignis afflicti, et ex hac de
causa nigromantici requirunt studiose Puteum intueri, sive stellas
Sacrarii, ut eorum auxilio plenius operentur optata. Et dicitur a
multis quod de illo exeunt lapides et sagipte tonitruale, opere
spirituum inferorum. Cum non sit ymago celi, habet stellas
pervisibiles quatuor, dispositio quarum sic certificatur: in superfitie
flammarum exeuntium sunt duo, et duo parum sub ore puthealis,
et hec est forma in celo aspectus sui.’ Over against this we find
the application, as follows: Natus in hoc signo erit gratiosus
habere experimenta et scire incantationes, constringere spiritus et
mirabilia facere, et mulieres convincere artis ingeniosus erit,
quietus, sagax, et plus pauper quam dives, et uti metallis, et
alchemesta, et nigromanticus et erit homo quietus, ingeniosus,
sagax, secretus, debilis, pauidus, timidus, etc.’ The superstition of
which Mirandola accuses Scot is very evident here, but it is no
less plain that the author’s purpose was astrological and not
magical.
[266] See especially the circular letter of Gregory ix., anno
1239.
[267] Albert Beham, Regist. Epistol. p. 128.
[268] Book iv. chap. ix. ‘De imaginibus quae virtutes faciunt
mirabiles, et fuerunt inventae in libro qui fuit inventus in Ecclesia
de Cordib.’
[269] Nectanebus, sometimes spelt Neptanebus, is perhaps the
‘Naptium’ of the Picatrix (iii. 8). See also on this curious subject
the Pancrates of Lucian, the verses of Adalberone or Ascelin (a.d.
1006) in the Recueil des Hist. des Gaules (Bouquet x. 67), the
English romance of Alisaundre (Early English Text Soc. 1867) and
the Alexander of Juan Lorenzo Segura de Astorga. In this last
poem, which belongs to the thirteenth century, the hero’s arms
are said to have been forged by the fairies. There is an article on
‘Nectanebo’ by D. G. Hogarth in the Eng. Hist. Review, Jan. 1896.
The same mystic fame attached itself to Pythagoras.
[270] In the poem of Albéric de Besançon.
[271] St. Chrysostom (a.d. 398) speaks of the custom of using
brass coins of Alexander as amulets.
[272] It is a curious fact that under the historic Nekhtneb (362-
45 b.c.) the Greek philosophers Eudoxus and Chrysippus spent
eleven years in Egypt to learn the astronomical secrets of the
priests.
[273] A Geomancy, said to be the work of Scot, is preserved in
the Munich Library, No. 489 in 4to, saec. xvi. See the Thousand
Nights for instances of the prevalence of this art.
[274] This ms. reached me from Germany. It is unbound and
contained in an envelope made from the leaf of an old choir-book
covered with manuscript music. This cover is secured by three
large seals bearing the arms of Dunkelsphuhl, to which family it
seems to have belonged. The preface is dated at Prague. It is
possible the ms. may have had something to do with the magical
studies of Dr. John Dee, who spent some time in Prague at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. See Appendix iv.
[275] Leonardo Pisano uses this word in the Liber Abbaci. See
p. 187vo of the Florence ms. Bibl. Naz. i. 2616, where the
following passage occurs: ‘Secundum modum algebrae et
almuchabalae, scilicet ad proportionem et restaurationem.’ In an
ancient list of works by Gerard of Cremona (? the younger) found
in the Vatican (No. 2392) we have this title: ‘Liber alcoarismi de
iebra et almucabala tractatus.’ See Boncompagni’s Life of Gerard,
Rome 1851. Works on almuchabola are found also under the
names of Al Deinouri, Al Sarakhsi, Al Khouaresmi, Khamel Schagia
ben Aslam, and Al Thoussi. See D’Herbelot.
[276] They show a distinct likeness to the Magreb or West
African writing.
[277] This resemblance should be studied in the remarkably
beautiful ms. of the Liber Abbaci, numbered xi. 21 in the Bibl. Naz.
Florence.
[278] Epistola de Secretis, ed. Master of the Rolls, Longmans,
1859, pp. 531, 544.
[279] Explanatio in Prophetias Merlini, iii. 26.
[280] See the interesting work by Graf, Miti, Leggendi e
Superstizioni del Medio Evo, Torino, Loescher, 1893.
[281] ‘Otia Imperialia’ in Leibnitz Scriptores Rerum
Brunsvicensium, i. 921.
[282] Illustrium Miraculorum, xii. 12. The next tale, in chap.
xiii., relates how some men, wandering by chance on Etna, heard
a voice cry from under the hill ‘Prepare the fires.’ This was heard
by them a second time, and then the cry was ‘Prepare a great
fire,’ upon which other voices asked for whom this should be
done, and the answer came back that it was for the Duke of
Thuringia, a friend and trusty servant of these lower powers. This
the hearers made faith of in a writing given to the Emperor
Frederick, and it presently appeared that Bertolph of Thuringia, a
noted tyrant, heretic and persecutor of the Church, had died at
the very day and hour when these voices were heard on Etna.
[283] See Anecdotes Historiques, by Lecoy de la Marche, Paris,
1877, p. 32.
[284] This romance was published by the Roxburghe Club,
London, 1873.
[285] See Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie.
[286] The sarcophagus was opened in 1781 and all was found
as described above. The body of the great Emperor was in good
preservation and with it were remains of Peter ii. of Aragon, and
Duke William, son of Frederick ii. of Aragon.
[287] German prophecies of the same kind are given by
Grimm, op. cit.
[288] See Pertz Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, xviii. 796.
[289] For example, he is called: Dei ‘coöperator, et Vicarius
constitutus in terris’; ‘the cornerstone of the Church,’ etc. See
Huillard-Bréholles Vie et correspondance de Pierre de la Vigne,
Paris, Plon, 1864.
[290] See also another romance called L’Histoire de Maugis
d’Aygremont.
 [291] See also Leyden’s Scenes of Infancy, pt. ii.
[292] Timbs’s Abbeys, Castles, and Ancient Halls of England
and Wales: London, Warne, vol. iii. p. 126.
[293] Lay of the Last Minstrel, Note Y.
[294] I quote from the edition of Florence, 1580.
[295] P. 343. See ante, pp. 140, 192, and Renan’s Averroës, p.
314.
[296] P. 375.
[297] I cannot leave this interesting though obscure author
without noticing the undoubted reference he makes in his
Specchio to the Gipsies. ‘Certain people,’ he says (p. 351), ‘have a
superstition regarding lucky and unlucky days, which have been
pointed out to them by those who call themselves Egyptians.’ We
have hitherto supposed that 1422 was the time when Gipsies first
appeared in the West. That year is cited by Muratori in his
Dissertazioni as the date of a document which speaks of the
coming of Andrew, who called himself Duke of Egypt, and all his
tribe. Passavanti, however, wrote about 1350, so that the epoch
of migration must be carried back at least a century.
[298] Inferno, xx. 116, 117.
[299] Lane’s Modern Egyptians, 1837, vol. i. p. 360. For a tract
on Es Seémiya, by the Shaik Ali Al Tarabulsio (of Tripoli), who
composed it in 1219, see Asseman, Cat. Bibl. Pal. Med. p. 362.
[300] See the De Secretis of Bacon for a curious account of
these tricks as practised in his day.
[301] Inferno di Dante col Comento di Jacopo della Lana,
Bologna, 1866, vol. i. p. 351.
[302] In the ninth novel of the eighth day.
[303] Wesseloffsky, Bologna, 1867, vol. ii. pp. 180-217.
[304] No. xx.
[305] Chiose sopra Dante, published by Lord Vernon; Florence,
1846, pp. 162-163.
[306] Pl. lxxxix. sup. cod. 38.
[307] No. 489.
[308] Fondo Vaticano 2392, p. 97vo. and 98ro. See
Boncompagni, Della vita e delle opere de Gherardo Cremonese;
Roma, 1851, p. 7.
[309] Maccheronea, xviii.
[310] ‘Innumerabiles fabulae aniles circumferuntur, et jam nunc
hodie.’ Hist. Eccl. p. 494.
[311] Obiit 1625.
[312] ‘Chiose anonime alla prima Cantica della Divina
Commedia’; Torino, Salmi, 1865, p. 114.
[313] Lay of the Last Minstrel, Note W.
[314] Ibid. Note Z.
[315] Lay of the Last Minstrel, Note Y.
[316] Lay of the Last Minstrel, Note Y.
[317] ‘Et, ut puto, in Scotia libri ipsius dicebantur, me puero,
extare, sed sine horrore quodam non posse attingi ob malorum
daemonum praestigias quae, illis apertis, fiebant.’—Hist. Eccl. p.
495.
[318] Lay of the Last Minstrel, Note W.
[319] Apologie des Grands Hommes accusez de Magie, Paris,
1669.
[320] De Michaele Scoto, Veneficii injuste damnato, 1739.
[321] My readers owe these tales to the kindness of Mr. C. G.
Leland, who procured them for me from an old Florentine
woman. She is familiar to Mr. Leland’s friends as ‘Maddalena,’ and
is the depository of that traditional lore on which he has so
happily drawn in his Legends of Florence. Her stories are
interesting if only as an example of folklore up to date, and of the
way in which an Italian mind deals with the legend of Michael
Scot, while some points they offer are certainly original and highly
curious.
[322] This may be a variant of ‘Maugis’ or Merlin. In the
romance of Maugis d’Aygremont we find the following passage: ‘Il
n’y avoit meilleur maistre que lui … et l’appelloit-on Maistre
Maugis.’ On the other hand Mengot is a genuine early Teutonic
name. ‘Et hic liber finitus est per manus Mengoti Itelbrot, Anno
domini mºcccºlxxxv.’ is the colophon to a manuscript of the
Almagest of Ptolemy in the Vatican, Fondo Palatino, 1365, p.
206ro.
 [323] ‘M’hai scottato me, ma ora scotto te.’ This play on words
is the turning-point of the tale.
[324] ‘Scorticata.’ It may be that a play on words is intended
here also.
[325] This is no doubt the benj or bhang of the Arabs and
Indians which still furnishes them with a potent narcotic.
[326] Laurentian Library, P. lxxxix, sup. cod. 38, p. 409 (old
number 256) verso.
[327] Here and elsewhere in this text are astrological signs
which cannot be reproduced in print.

Transcriber’s Note: By comparison with a copy of Scot’s manuscript

(Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Plut. 89 sup. 038, ff.
409v-413r), the correct astrological signs have here been added.

[328] Cf. with the expression in the colophon ‘qui summus inter
alios nominatur magister.’
[329] The manuscript shows a drawing of a magic circle here.
It has the names of demons alternately with those of the cardinal
points.
[330] These are names of philosophers probably the same as
the ‘vnay et melchia’ of the Luminis Luminum, the rather that the
phrase ‘non convertitur perfecte in lunam’ occurs in both
passages. I do not know how to explain the fact that two
paragraphs of the Liber Dedali correspond so closely with one in
the Liber Luminis.
[331] There is probably a reference here to the disputes which
divided the different alchemical schools.
[332] The nature of this powder of moles is explained a little
further on in the Liber Dedali, par. 10.
[333] A double chloride of ammonium and mercury,
represented by the formula 2NH₄Cl. HgCl₂, H₂O.
[334] The use of matters derived from the animal kingdom,
carbonised toads or moles, may be illustrated from the Liber
Dyabesi (Ricc. ms. l. iii. 13, 119, p. 4 recto) which treats of what
had been ‘ab omni Latinitate intemptatum’ viz. the distillation of a
white land-tortoise (v. p. 7 verso). Pliny remarks that goat’s blood
sharpens and hardens iron tools and polishes steel better than
any file.
 [335] This passage is highly significant, and furnishes a key to
the title of the treatise.
[336] The doctrine of the vitriols is here substantially the same
as in the great work of Ibn Beithar of Malaga.
[337] There is a well-known tract De aluminibus et salibus
ascribed to Rases in the Paris ms. (6514 p. 128); it also occurs in
the Speciale ms.
[338] This phrase is found in the De aluminibus et salibus of
Rases (Paris ms. 6514 p. 128) who calls the place ‘Elebla.’ Vincent
of Beauvais ascribes the saying to Geber.
[339] The use of the first person singular here agrees with the
notion that in this part of the Liber Luminis we have the record of
the author’s own experiments. See ante, p. 87.
 INDEX

Abbreviatio Avicennae, 53-59, 66, 152, 177, 178.

Abd-el-Mumen, 112.
Aboasar, 101, 143.
Abraxas gems, 132.
Abrincensis, Henry, 164, 176.
Achinas, 31.
Alain de l’Isle, 195.
Alamout, Castle of, 147.
Albategni, 100.
Albertus Magnus, 78, 127, 143, 185.
Albigenses, 109, 111.
Albigensian Crusade, 111, 112, 193.
Alchemy, 65-95.
⸺ Disputes concerning, 73, 259.
Alexander the Great, 32, 33.
⸺ Legend of, 187-189.
Alexandria, 32, 69.
Alfarabi, 129.
Al Faquir, 49, 118.
Alfargan, 101.
Algebra and Magic, 100, 190-192.
Al Khowaresmi, 100.
Al Kindi, 71, 73, 74, 79.
Almagest, 98.
Al Mamun, 100.
Al Mansour, 112.
Almuchabola, 190, 192, 270.
Alpetrongi, 99-105, 124.
Alphagirus or Al Faquir, 49, 118.
Alphonso of Castile, 112, 143.
Ambassador, Scot as an, 169-175, 218.
Andrew, Scot’s interpreter, 119.
Anonymous Florentine, The, 8, 210, 211.
Apologie des Grands Hommes, 222.
Aquinas, S. Thomas, 204.
Arabic known to Scot, 24.
Arabs, their influence, 42-45.
‘Archelaus,’ Alchemy of, 82, 83.
Archimedes, 67.
Aristotle, 33, 46, 47, 107, 129.
⸺ Legend of, 187-189.
Ars Aurifera, 77.
Ars Notoria, 192, 195, 204.
Arthurian Legend, The, 195-205.
Assephae, Liber, 54, 235, 237.
Astrologia of Scot, 141.
Astrologorum Dogmata of Scot, 142.
Astrology and Magic, 184, 189.
Astrology taught by Scot, 141, 142.
Astronomia of Scot, 26, 27, 28, 40.
Astronomy of the Arabs, 96-105.
Avalon, 194-205.
Avendeath, John, 35, 46, 53, 117-119, 235-239.
Averroës, vii, 106-110, 140, 185.
Avicenna, 46, 47, 53, 54, 73, 74, 106, 129, 183, 235-239.
Azarchel, 101, 103.

Bacon, Roger, 5, 12, 13, 14, 16, 118, 126, 135, 136, 145, 174,
175, 183, 185, 192, 195.
Baconthorpe, John, 15.
Baldi, Bernardino, vii-ix.
Balwearie, Scotts of, 9.
Bartholomew of Messina, 38.
Benefice sought for Scot, 157-163.
Benvenuto da Imola, 210.
Berwick, Bar of, 218.
Bibliotheca of Manget, 77.
Birth of Scot, when, 10; where, 7-10.
Boccaccio, 16, 211, 212.
Boece, Hector, 222.
Bologna, 16, 173, 174, 210.
Bonacci, Leonardo, 148, 149.
Bonatti, Guido, 6, 124.
Book of Might, Scot’s, 203, 218, 221.
Burgh-under-Bowness, 221.
Byzantine Alchemy, 83.

Camperius, 153.
Canterbury, Archbishop of, 158.
Capitulum of Scot, 142.
Cashel, Archbishopric, 160, 161.
Castrensis, Robert, 75, 80.
Catskin, the bewitched, 225-227.
Cento Novelle Antiche, 197, 214.
Cervilerium, The, 168.
Character of Scot, 168, 169.
Cheiromantia, The, 215.
Circular Letter of Frederick II., 173.
Compositiones ad Tingenda, 67.
Constantia, Queen, 19.
⸺ Empress, 29, 111.
Cordova, 106, 112-114, 132.
⸺ Magic at, 19, 114, 115, 169, 215, 216, 231-234.
Courçon, Robert de, 110.
Crates or Democritus, The Alchemy of, 33.
Cronica dei Matematici, viii, ix.
Crusades, 30, 156, 171, 172.
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