Professional Instagram Influencer Publishes A Cookbook, Gets A Little Blow Back When Her Recipes Feature Poisonous Mushrooms

BUZZFEED NEWS- Johnna Holmgren is an Instagram influencer and blogger who goes by the name Fox Meets Bear.

Holmgren lives in Minnesota with her husband, Max, a chalk artist, and their three daughters. She chronicles their life living in the woods, foraging for food, cooking, and crafting. Her incredibly pleasing Instagram aesthetic has earned her over 125,000 followers on the platform.

In May, Holmgren released her first cookbook, which was called Tales From a Forager’s Kitchen. It contains recipes using food that readers can forage on their own from the forest, including wild mushrooms, flowers, and berries.

Holmgren’s aim with the book, according to its description, is to help people regain an “appreciation for the earth.”

“She’s someone who goes straight to the woods behind her home for mushrooms and syrup and heads to her garden for tomatoes and fruits,” the book states. “Her cookbook is more than just a book —it’s an escape to another realm, a retreat into nature, and a taste of the life she lives.”

This is the very best thing about Instagram culture.  You don’t have to be an expert on anything to become successful.  You can become a published author with a cookbook for sale on Amazon without knowing anything about cooking!  All you need is to post a bunch of pictures, get some followers and then boom, next thing you know you’re a professional cookbook seller.  It’s absolutely great for all the aspiring chefs out there.  It’s absolutely awful for all the aspiring eaters who make the recipes featuring poisonous fucking mushrooms.

Holmgren and her publisher, Rodale Books, said in a statement to BuzzFeed News they are “taking the discussions about [Holmgren’s] book very seriously.”

“We are reviewing its text closely,” they continued, adding that Holmgren had no further comment on the negative reviews.

One recipe that has caused concern is Holmgren’s recipe for “Dark ChocolateDipped Fungi.” She tells readers to use “two cups of in-season foraged mushrooms,” with morel mushrooms being one of the suggested varieties.

The recipe then instructs the reader to brush and wash the fungi, place them on parchment paper, dip them in melted chocolate, sprinkle them with salt and rose petals, and then place them in the fridge or freezer to cool.

The problem is that morel mushrooms can make people sick if eaten raw. According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, consuming raw morels can lead to “nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain.”

I mean that’s like the first thing you learn when your parents allow you to go outside.  Don’t eat the berries or mushrooms.  Somehow this nature influencer decided to double down and hammer both of them.

Readers also were concerned about a smoothie recipe that included frozen, raw elderberries.

… he pointed to a statement from the elderberry cooperative website, which says “some few people seem to be strongly affected by consuming raw elderberries or elderberry juice, where it upsets their digestive system. Why they have a lower tolerance for elderberry is not clearly understood.”

In a way it’s kind of a nice Darwinian natural selection thing at work here.  If you buy a cookbook and make the recipes from someone whose only claim to fame is pretty filtered photos of her and her chalk artist (real job) husband, you kind of deserve all the puking and diarrhea.  It’s like the universe’s way of teaching you a lesson. Don’t hate that.

Also if you look at this picture and decide to make it can you really complain when shit is running down the back of your slacks in the middle of a meeting?

I’ll stick to the Chrissy Teigen cookbook, thank you very much.