Is this edible or would it require a trip to A&E if eaten!

Not sure if this is the right forum. Please move admin if I should have put it elsewhere.
I have a large variety of Mushrooms/ Toadstools growing in my little wood and in the field. This huge specimen ( have another 4 of these!) appears every year. It will have been caused by burying some huge tree stumps in the field some years ago.
I am very fond of mushrooms but not so keen on visiting the loo with speed etc. I know zero about fungi.
I was told that puff balls were edible. One appeared about the size of a football so dug it up cut it into large slices and fried it in butter. Lord alive Dunlop would probably have paid good money for it and sure it would have bounced, absolutely terrible and a waste of butter!
So would be grateful if someone could identify it and tell me whether to get the frying pan out or not. It weighs about 3 kg, specs there to show how big it is.
I have various other fungi appearing so if there is someone who “knows their onions” or fungi more to the point, would you mind if I bombard you with other photos as the fungi appear?

 

My first thought was why would you think it might be edible?
Second thought was put it on it's feet, put it's glasses on and let it wander off.

 

Could be a giant polypore they look equally tough and inedible.

 

You’ve made my day @NigelJ, had a good chuckle to myself. Cheek but love it! Having taken your advice it and its 4 relatives are now on the bonfire pile!

 

My father got a puffball sliced it and fried it in butter, it was edible and my mother hit the roof when she found he'd used a whole pat of butter (8 oz) on it.
Many fungi can be eaten without ill effects, but turn out to be inedible because of texture, bad taste or size.

 

Whoo-a @hailbopp , that's one impressive life form you have there! If it tries to make a contact, please call United Nations immediately. I understand that it would be the Secretary- General's job to reply.

On a serious note, do not eat any mushroom you are not 150% sure of. Loo dashes or AE trips are nothing, the real risk is to eat something with toxins that permanently damage your liver.

Some light reading: Mushroom poisoning - Wikipedia

In Finland False Morel is a known and desired mushroom often found in spring and also sold in supermarkets. The trouble is that while all Finns know they must be carefully boiled twice, or soaked several times to allow the poison to dissolve, foreigners don't.

Without first soaking the poison off this gastronomic treat is deadly. Nowadays supermarkets must by law hang warnings, sticker the boxes with warnings and provide instructions but it wasn't always that way.

Gyromitra esculenta - Wikipedia

 

Kill it before it develops language skills!

 

Glad my posting has caused such merriment. Yes, these whatever they are, are sizeable. Thanks for giving me a good giggle and I will accept best to buy my mushrooms from a reputable source rather than risking a visit to the local hospital after consuming some of my various home growns.

 

Apart from other considerations, you tend not to find fried slugs in supermarket mushrooms

 

Urgh, I can see a sleeping face at the bottom of " the thing" @hailbopp

 

Oh thanks a bunch @noisette47. I thought I was done with the subject of slugs for one day as I, to my horror discovered 1 on a lettuce leaf which I was just about to consume tonight. How the hell it managed to hang onto the leaf despite being hurled round in a salad spinner god only knows. I may say post the discovery I went off the rest of the salad and made do with cheese and biscuits being a safe bet!

 

As they say, what's worse than finding a maggot in your apple.

Half a maggot in your apple.

I'm totally off those sugar snap peas since one came open on my plate and revealed a gigantic maggot.

 

Not cheese with pretty blue mould running through it, by any chance?

 

Don’t start, now feeling decidedly green about the gills and no I have not tried any of that monster fungi.