 The toxins in A. muscaria are water @-@ soluble . When sliced thinly , or finely diced and boiled in plentiful water until thoroughly cooked , it seems to be detoxified . Although its consumption as a food has never been widespread , the consumption of detoxified A. muscaria has been practiced in some parts of Europe ( notably by Russian settlers in Siberia ) since at least the 19th century , and likely earlier . The German physician and naturalist Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff wrote the earliest published account on how to detoxify this mushroom in 1823 . In the late 19th century , the French physician Félix Archimède Pouchet was a populariser and advocate of A. muscaria consumption , comparing it to manioc , an important food source in tropical South America that must be detoxified before consumption . 
