Wild mushroom consumption in the P’urhépecha Plateau at Michoacán, México: social, ethnomycological and nutritional issues

Abstract

Among Mesoamerican cultures, P’urhépecha settlers inhabiting Michoacán State in Central Mexico preserve ancestral tradition on mushrooms eating. Most mycological knowledge available for this ethnical group has been addressed in the Pátzcuaro’s Lake zone, whereas P’urhépecha communities in other cultural and ecological relevant geographic areas remain unstudied. Thus, this work describes the ethnomycological knowledge of a scarcely analyzed Arantepacua P’urhépecha community at Michoacán Plateau region. Through structured interviews and field collections, data on the use, knowledge, biomass extraction and nomenclature of wild mushrooms were obtained. A list of P’urhépecha names to design 16 wild mushrooms species and 11 fruitbody components is documented and studied community used Spanish popular names to describe 21 wild mushrooms species and 11 fruitbody structures. Most valuable consumed mushroom species for Arantepacua settlers belong to the Amanita, Boletus, Hypomyces and Ramaria genera. Gender roles on mushrooms collect and cooking, new terms in P’urhépecha dialect to refer the parts of a fruitbody and vegetative mycelium, as well as local recipes and nutritional relevance of the mushroom species consumed by studied community are addressed and discussed. The ethnomycological knowledge documented contributes new terms in P’urhépecha to name the parts of an agarical fruitbody, the mycelium and empirical knowledge about mycorrhizal associations. This was the first P’urhépecha ethnomycological study made outside the Lake Pátzcuaro basin.