August 16, 2023

"Janet Yellen explains her ‘magic mushroom’ experience in China."

CNN has the scoop:
“There was a delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later,” Yellen said about the group dinner that clarified that she didn’t organize nor did she do the ordering.... 
Yellen then said that she had “read that if the mushrooms are cooked properly, which I’m sure they were at this very good restaurant, that they have no impact. But all of us enjoyed the mushrooms, the restaurant, and none of us felt any ill effects from having eaten them,” Yellen said....

Well, then... it's nothing. But... "any ill effects"... wait a minute. Were there effects that were not ill? Maybe there were delightful or mystical effects. But, you will argue, she said there was "no impact." No, she said IF they were cooked "properly," then they have no impact. I still think there could have been an impact — an effect — but it just wasn't ill. And perhaps part of the effect is to heighten the caginess of speech, and Janet Yellen is already a person dedicated to taking great care with her speech.

These mushrooms are called jian shou qing, which means “see hand blue.” That's not because when you're under the influence you see things, such as your hand, in different colors, such as blue. Rather, when you push on the mushroom — slicing it, perhaps — it turns blue. 

Stunning — isn't it? — that the Secretary of the Treasury was fed psychedelic mushrooms by whoever it was that did organize that group dinner. 

From the Guardian article on the same incident:

After a Weibo user posted about Yellen eating at the Yunnan restaurant called In and Out during her trip.... The chain said on Weibo that Yellen’s visit and choice of dish had caused several branches to sell out within hours.

“At 2[pm], the Sanlitun store was the first to sell out; from 8pm, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Xi’an, Xiamen, and Tianjin stores were in a hurry until they were completely sold out,” In and Out said on Weibo.

“Two weeks after that meal… colleagues from headquarters in branding, personnel, finance, etc. collectively transferred to another job and turned into mushroom cutting workers,” the restaurant said in a later post.

33 comments:

RideSpaceMountain said...

Considering the last 30 years of economic central planning and mismanagement by the Fed (it really started under Greenspan...anybody still remember him?) and others, an outside observer would be hard pressed to think they weren't on 'boomers' the whole time.

rehajm said...

She’s a kook. A former Fed head what believes helicopter money from The US Treasury causes no ill effects…

tim in vermont said...

What did she go there to beg for from China is my only question. Why did they make her bend her knee to them?

Buckwheathikes said...

This is the cover story for her bowing profusely to Emperor Palpatine.

But if it's true, the message is quite obvious: We can poison you whenever we want.

Bob Boyd said...

So Yellen blundered into this mushroom restaurant and as a direct result a number of Chinese restaurant executives' careers were destroyed and their families impoverished.
But don't worry. Yellen and her entourage suffered no ill effects. Wow. Talk about your ugly American...

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

To me the best way she could demonstrate “taking great care with her speech” is to just speak plainly and directly so there’s no question what she’s saying. She is doing the opposite because she’s so used to speaking bafflegab and trying to disguise bad economic news within a blizzard of bureaucratic BS. If your words leave enough wiggle room to perform a 180 later than you are as far from plain as can be.

Iman said...

Janet Yellen? More like Mason Reese…

No joke!

Sebastian said...

"Janet Yellen is already a person dedicated to taking great care with her speech"

Like in 2021, when she expected "somewhat higher inflation over the next several months" that would be "a transitory thing"?

Biden BS shovelers need no shrooms to hallucinate in public.

Amadeus 48 said...

Yellen has been high for years--over-promoted and hallucinatory.

Bob Boyd said...

If the story about the executives is true, I challenge Janet Yellen, who I'm sure is a fine person, to get on the phone to President Xi and insist he restore these executives, who did nothing wrong, to their former positions and salaries. Tell him if he doesn't do this, she will lose face. And I challenge her to follow up and make sure it happens.
Come on, Ms Yellen. Do the right thing.

gspencer said...

". . . and Janet Yellen is already a person dedicated to taking great care with her speech,"

along with making sure her stomach is never empty.

Heartless Aztec said...

Trippin' balls.

Sally327 said...

3 people in Australia ate some dish with mushrooms in it and died. The cook insists it was all tragic mistake but she seems to have form in this area, others in the past experienced ill effects from her cooking.

Better high than dead. Janet Yellen is a less attractive version of Hillary Clinton.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Surprisingly she looks exactly as smart as she acts although I understand she is well credentialed and undoubtedly incredibly connected. She fools no one outside the hive.

mikee said...

Licit transgression is akin to humblebragging.

Josephbleau said...

This story does not answer many questions like:

1. Is it a common cultural practice in China to eat hallucinogenic mushrooms?
2. Does the restaurant tell you in advance that they are giving you drugs?
3. Did she take them by accident, or did she want them?
4. If a Federal employee on a paid business trip takes a schedule 1 drug, is that a violation of government policy?
5. Did she trip out or not, her statement is babble.
6. If a government official did this, ok, but why talk about it, just keep your mouth shut, unless you think tripping is cool.

Other than fentanyl exports, I never knew that drugs were a thing in modern China, opium, yes, in the old days, but that was Britain’s crime.

cassandra lite said...

"I'll have the mushrooms, please."

"Very good choice. And how would you like them?"

"Not properly cooked."



"Satori, satori! If the doors of perception were cleansed, national debt would appear to us as it really is: infinite."

Bob Boyd said...

If the doors of perception were cleansed, national debt would appear to us as it really is: infinite.

Awesome.

Rusty said...

If only she'd stay there and get high the country would be better off.

Temujin said...

Not much to say except that I cannot wait for the worst Administration in my lifetime to be thrown out of office. Every stinkin' one of them. Janet can keep doing mushrooms if it helps her get better at her job.

Michael K said...

Yellen always has a dish of magic mushrooms just before she declares that inflation is transient and the economy is just fine.

Marcus Bressler said...

Based on personal experience, cooking magic 'shrooms does NOT take away their hallucinogenic properties. While some of my friends ate them raw, and others sauteed them, the main method of preparations was to boil them and add it to very cold grape juice in order to ingest. We had to hold our noses to put up with the absolutely horrible taste. But it was a cleaner high than blotter acid. I had a movie poster of Blazing Saddles upon my apartment wall and, as the shrooms kicked in, the horse began to move and the ni----- , uh, Sheriff, tried to hold on for all he was worth.
And, anecdotally speaking, mushrooms picked from horseshit were more potent than those harvested from cow droppings.

MarcusB. THEOLDMAN

My FWB brought back a candy bar that had shrooms as an ingredient, from Cali on our return trip to Florida. I asked her not to indulge while driving.

Bob Boyd said...

Show of hands, how many here have done shrooms?

Real American said...

You Be Yellen'

Mike Yancey said...

"if the mushrooms are cooked properly..."

This is very similar to Poke Salad (or Poke Sallet), which was eaten regularly in the south in poor times. It grows by the roads.

It is poisonous. If not prepared correctly, it will at the very least make you very sick. The mature areas of the plant are avoided. You'd only take the youngest leaves, no stems, berries, roots. Then it has to be boiled twice. Discarding and rinsing each time.

My grandmother served it to us instead of turnip greens once, early-sixties.

https://www.southernliving.com/what-is-poke-salad-6824774

Still - seems rather careless allowing a Cabinet-level official eat FOUR SERVINGS of a potential hallucinogenic mushroom.

Earnest Prole said...

Strange coincidence: Of all people in American public life, Janet Yellen most resembles a mushroom.

PM said...

At first I read
"Janet Yellen explains her 'magic mushroom' experience in Chinese"
which would've been stellar.

Will Cate said...

Honestly, she sounds like she doesn't know what she's talking about.

Hassayamper said...

I am willing to bet I know more about mushrooms, magic and otherwise, than all of the rest of you put together.

There is a rather good article on this mushroom that appeared on CNN in the middle of last month, with high quality pictures and scientific names. I was impressed. It can be read here:

*** https://www.cnn.com/travel/yunnan-cuisine-beijing-restaurant-mushrooms-yellen-intl-hnk/index.html

The Chinese province of Yunnan is well known for its many wild mushroom species and enthusiastic human consumption thereof. Legend holds that there are 900 edible species in the province, many of them unknown to science. The mushroom Dr. Yellen ate, jiàn shǒu qīng (見手青), is in the genus Lanmaoa, members of which can be found in both Eurasia and North America. It is a type of mushroom known as a bolete, which means it has pores under the cap instead of gills. In fact, it was previously placed in the genus Boletus alongside the famous "porcini" of Europe (Boletus edulis), which comports with its delicious flavor.

Where it is cut or bruised, the flesh of this mushroom stains a distinct blue color, which disappears when it is cooked. There are a dozen or more other genera of boletes with the same property, many of which (such as those in the genera Gyroporus, Leccinum, and Xerocomus/Xerocomellus) are good edibles. Others are quite toxic. None of them are known to reproducibly induce hallucinogenic effects.

This mushroom is not closely related to the well-known blue-staining hallucinogenic mushrooms such as those in the genus Psilocybe, and does not contain psilocybin, psilocin, baeocystin, or any other known hallucinogen. Research is ongoing, but the anecdotal reports of hallucinations after consuming these mushrooms seem most likely to be a self-induced suggestive/placebo effect caused by the mistaken expectation that blue stains reliably identify psychedelic species of mushrooms.

An article on the genus Lanmaoa can be found on Wikipedia, with pictures of some closely related species showing the appearance of the blue-staining flesh:

*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanmaoa

You can read more about the chemical compounds that cause blueing in boletes at this link:

*** https://www.fungimag.com/fall-2010-articles/BoletesLR.pdf

A list of the many species of boletes that stain blue is at this link:

*** https://boletes.wpamushroomclub.org/product-category/filter-set-5-cap-flesh-filters/flesh-context-staining-filters/cap-flesh-context-stains-blue/page/8/

A Westerner's experience cooking these mushrooms is recorded here:

*** https://foodergolove.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/tripping-the-live-fungtastic-cooking-with-hallucinogenic-wild-mushrooms-in-yunnan/

I hope to visit Yunnan someday in the rainy season, sampling their many varieties from market vendors and mushroom hot-pot restaurants, and maybe even going on foray in the forest myself. You can see some of the red-stemmed jiàn shǒu qīng mushrooms in a market basket on the left side of the table about 10 seconds into the following YouTube short:

*** https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FtOpKcF2vKI

Hassayamper said...

I am willing to bet I know more about mushrooms, magic and otherwise, than all of the rest of you put together.

There is a rather good article on this mushroom that appeared on CNN in the middle of last month, with high quality pictures and scientific names. I was impressed. It can be read here:

*** https://www.cnn.com/travel/yunnan-cuisine-beijing-restaurant-mushrooms-yellen-intl-hnk/index.html

The Chinese province of Yunnan is well known for its many wild mushroom species and enthusiastic human consumption thereof. Legend holds that there are 900 edible species in the province, many of them unknown to science. The mushroom Dr. Yellen ate, jiàn shǒu qīng (見手青), is in the genus Lanmaoa, members of which can be found in both Eurasia and North America. It is a type of mushroom known as a bolete, which means it has pores under the cap instead of gills. In fact, it was previously placed in the genus Boletus alongside the famous "porcini" of Europe (Boletus edulis), which comports with its delicious flavor.

Where it is cut or bruised, the flesh of this mushroom stains a distinct blue color, which disappears when it is cooked. There are a dozen or more other genera of boletes with the same property, many of which (such as those in the genera Gyroporus, Leccinum, and Xerocomus/Xerocomellus) are good edibles. Others are quite toxic. None of them are known to reproducibly induce hallucinogenic effects.

This mushroom is not closely related to the well-known blue-staining hallucinogenic mushrooms such as those in the genus Psilocybe, and does not contain psilocybin, psilocin, baeocystin, or any other known hallucinogen. Research is ongoing, but the anecdotal reports of hallucinations after consuming these mushrooms seem most likely to be a self-induced suggestive/placebo effect caused by the mistaken expectation that blue stains reliably identify psychedelic species of mushrooms.

An article on the genus Lanmaoa can be found on Wikipedia, with pictures of some closely related species showing the appearance of the blue-staining flesh:

*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanmaoa

You can read more about the chemical compounds that cause blueing in boletes at this link:

*** https://www.fungimag.com/fall-2010-articles/BoletesLR.pdf

A list of the many species of boletes that stain blue is at this link:

*** https://boletes.wpamushroomclub.org/product-category/filter-set-5-cap-flesh-filters/flesh-context-staining-filters/cap-flesh-context-stains-blue/page/8/

A Westerner's experience cooking these mushrooms is recorded here:

*** https://foodergolove.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/tripping-the-live-fungtastic-cooking-with-hallucinogenic-wild-mushrooms-in-yunnan/

I hope to visit Yunnan someday in the rainy season, sampling their many varieties from market vendors and mushroom hot-pot restaurants, and maybe even going on foray in the forest myself. You can see some of the red-stemmed jiàn shǒu qīng mushrooms in a market basket on the left side of the table about 10 seconds into the following YouTube short:

*** https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FtOpKcF2vKI

GrapeApe said...

She is full of shit. She got a check to bow.

Iman said...

Yellen like a felon!

Prof. M. Drout said...

I try to look on the bright side: maybe these people are a sign of progress.
It used to be that to be the "first ________ _______," you had to be both enormously accomplished in your own field AND morally exemplary. Think Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, etc.
Then Obama lowered the bar, showing that the first black president could be mediocre as a president and morally nothing special. And now the Biden administration has progressed even further: Yellen, the Press Secretary, "Mayor Pete," and others show that not only do you not have to be of surpassing excellence to be the "first _______ _______," you can actually be incompetent, stupid, or both. Just think, we not only have "the first woman Treasury Secretary" but also just "the first woman Treasury Secretary who sucks at her job"; not just "the first black lesbian immigrant Press Secretary," but the "first black lesbian immigrant Press Secretary who is an actual moron," and not just "the first gay Transportation Secretary" (do we know that's actually true?), but "the first gay Transportation Secretary who knows nothing about transportation, doesn't bother to learn, and barely shows up for work."
Truly, we live in the greatest country in the world! Literally anyone, regardless of talent, integrity, intelligence, or work-ethic, can rise to the top in today's America! Think of how inspiring this must be to dim-witted suck-ups everywhere. Choose your parents carefully (or, like Lizzie Warren, fake your ethnicity), abandon all integrity, happily eat whatever toads the Party sets before you, and you too can fail your way upwards to the power, prestige, and, most of all, freedom from accountability.