How to Eat Magic Mushrooms Without Gagging

Eating psilocybin mushrooms can open your consciousness to the limitless wonders of the universe, or make your Sunday afternoon extra colorful, but they don't taste good. I'm not saying they're the worst-tasting thing ever, but magic mushrooms are dry and chewy, with a distinct earthy flavor that people describe as tasting like feet, like dirt, or like shit.

I used to be a proponent of the popular "just eat them, man, damn," school. A standard dose of mushrooms is only about 1 or 2 grams (give or take) so it only takes a little courage to chew 'em up, choke 'em down, and chase it with a strong-tasting beverage-of-choice. But there is a better way, a solution that requires almost no effort, and is more dignified than "forcing yourself," but not frou-frou like this recipe for "hallucinogenic mushroom fricando."

The best way to eat magic mushrooms is to combine them with those little plastic vats of marinated mushroom salad from the deli section of your local supermarket. It's effortless and inexpensive, and the combination of olive oil, vinegar, spices, and good-tasting mushrooms actually complements the dirty flavor of your golden teachers or flying saucers, rendering them somewhere between "edible" and "kind-of-good-actually," depending on your tastes.

A step-by-step guide to making magic mushrooms delicious (or at least palatable)

Supplies:

Process:

Why you shouldn't cook a meal with magic mushrooms

I don't want to judge anyone else's lifestyle, but I've never understood the appeal of making a full meal with psilocybin mushrooms. First, there's the possibility that applying heat to mushrooms makes them less potent--there's a debate about whether this is actually true, but why risk it? Even if cooking doesn't affect the potency of shrooms, preparing something like this "Creamy Garlic Shroom Pasta" is still a bad idea. It calls for the mushrooms to be powdered or finely chopped and that takes work, and it makes the already imprecise art of controlling how much you take even more difficult. Someone is going to eat a bigger-than-average portion, right?

More importantly, eating a cream-based pasta meal or anything heavy before a mushroom trip generally isn't recommended. You want to keep pre-trip meals light--maybe some fruits and vegetables, but that's about it.

If you really can't stand the taste of mushrooms, and even a bath in vinegar and olive oil doesn't help, you could grind dried mushrooms into a fine powder, buy a capsule machine, and make capsules to swallow. But this is a lot of effort so maybe you just need a hobby?

A disclaimer: Don't eat mushrooms!

Unless you live in certain cities, buying, selling, and consuming some varieties mushrooms is likely illegal, and you should respect The State's decisions about the kinds of things you're allowed to do in your own home for your own reasons.

Seriously, though: Don't take mushrooms if you don't know what you're doing. A mushroom trip can be a serious thing, and you don't want it to go south, so make sure you're in a good state of mind, in a good physical place, and surrounded by good people. Start small and eat a little, even though it's now delicious. You can always take more later, but once you eat them, you can't take less.