1.00pm
How COVID lockdown walks sparked Erin Patterson’s interest in wild mushrooms
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Erin Patterson has now started talking about mushrooms: how she loved to eat them, cook with them, too.
Patterson told the jury she would use them in curries or pasta dishes, soups and spaghetti. There was something about exotic mushrooms that tasted “more interesting”, she told the jury, and they had more flavour.
Patterson is being questioned about her past use of mushrooms in cooking by her defence barrister, Colin Mandy, SC.
The jury is shown messages sent by Patterson to online friends about her “hiding mushrooms in everything” and images she sent the friends of a dehydrator with mushrooms on the trays.
Patterson told the court she had an interest in wild mushrooms since early 2020. “The first COVID lockdown, when you are allowed [outside] for an hour a day, I would force the children to go out and get away from their devices for an hour,” she said.
The family would go to the Korumburra Gardens or the Rail Trail, and that was where she first spotted wild mushrooms. “It would have been the end of March, early April,” she said.
She said she had always enjoyed eating mushrooms. “They taste good and are very healthy,” she said. “I’d buy all the different types that Woolies would sell.”
Patterson said she would also get different types of mushrooms from farmers’ markets and grocers in Melbourne, including Asian stores she would visit while staying in the city with the children during school holidays.
1.08pm
From garden fork to kitchen fork: How Erin Patterson’s fascination with mushrooms grew
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Erin Patterson is continuing to tell the jury about her interest in mushrooms, which started with a love of their flavour and widened when she noticed wild mushrooms on the limited walks Victorians were allowed during COVID lockdown periods.
Patterson said mushrooms also grew at her former property in Korumburra, where she moved to in 2017 or 2018. She said she first noticed the mushrooms when her dog was eating them and picked them up to identify them and check if they were poisonous.
“As far as I could see, there were ones that were potentially edible, but there was one species that I was a bit worried about,” she said.
“There’s Facebook groups for mushroom lovers ... where people share what they found and talk about the identify. I scrolled a lot of them.”
Patterson said she was eventually confident the mushrooms growing in the paddocks of her three-acre property were field and horse mushrooms, so she cut a piece of one mushroom, friend it with butter and ate it.
“They tasted good and I didn’t get sick,” she said.
Patterson said that from then on, whenever she would see the same mushrooms growing in the paddocks, she would pick them and eat them.
“Sometimes [I would] put them in meals we all ate,” she said.
Patterson said she chopped mushrooms small so her children wouldn’t pick them.
1.12pm
Erin Patterson stands as the jury leaves for lunch
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The accused woman stood as the jury left for the lunch break, tapping her right fingers on the bench as she waited for them to leave.
Seated at the bar table are Crown prosecutors Nanette Rogers, SC, and Sarah Lenthall. For the defence, are barristers Colin Mandy, SC, and Sophie Stafford.
On the walls above the jury is Indigenous artwork. The courtroom’s seats are full. In front of the legal teams, the bench is filled with folders of papers, laptops, books and notes.
We will return with more live updates after the lunch break. Follow our live updates.
Accused killer cook Erin Patterson has conceded death cap mushrooms were in a beef Wellington she fed her lunch guests after telling a jury she often foraged for fungi and enjoyed buying exotic varieties because they tasted better.
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