the.com/beefsteak fungus
a tree-eating mushroom that bleeds red juice and tastes faintly of meat.
means A reddish, tongue-shaped bracket fungus (Fistulina hepatica) that grows on oaks and chestnuts, oozes a blood-like juice when cut, and is sometimes eaten for its meaty, slightly sour flavour.
from A plain-spoken English name born of pure resemblance: slice the thing and it looks unnervingly like raw steak, marbled flesh and all, weeping red "juice." Its Latin name is just as butcherly — Fistulina hepatica, where hepatica means "liver-like," because the fungus also calls to mind a slab of liver. So whether you read English or Latin, the message is the same: this mushroom has been mistaken for meat for as long as people have been hungry and looking at trees.
- bleeds red
- oozes blood-colored liquid when sliced open
- oak parasite
- grows on living oaks and chestnuts
- marbled inside
- flesh streaked like raw steak fat
- edible raw
- eaten thinly sliced, sour and lemony
- latin name
- Fistulina hepatica means little pipes, liver