Porcini

White mushroom, or boletus, is considered an elite tubular mushroom. On the cut, it has snow-white pulp, which has a characteristic feature – it does not darken after heat treatment. It is this property that made it possible to call it white. Borovik is also famous for its taste qualities: it has a rich mushroom flavor and a delicate aroma with nutty notes.

The appearance of the mushroom does not match its name: its hat is never white, and can have a shade from milky to brown. The younger the mushroom, the lighter its cap. The legs of these mushrooms have a mesh surface of a milky, beige or gray color. They come in different sizes: from small ones up to 7-10 cm in diameter to giant ones – more than 30 cm in diameter. It is believed that the largest white mushroom had a cap diameter of about 60 cm, and it weighed up to 11 kg. Such a find was reported in 1961 by Moscow Radio.

Looks like

The white mushroom has a convex cap with a velvety or smooth surface and a skin that does not separate from the pulp. The leg is cylindrical in shape and has a thickening at the base; a thin mesh pattern of light color is determined on its surface. Boletus has a pleasant mushroom aroma.

Mushrooms grow in forests almost everywhere: in Europe, Asia, North and South America, in northern Africa. They prefer coniferous, mixed and deciduous forests with sandy, sandy and loamy soils. Depending on which trees the boletus grows next to, its appearance changes. According to the halo of growth, many varieties of these gifts of the forest are distinguished. The most common varieties of boletus are:

Birch (spike)

It has a beige hat, grows in birch forests. Often found in forests in Russia.

Reticulate

It has a brown or orange hat and a short cylindrical leg. It grows in beech, oak, hornbeam forests in Europe, in northern Africa.

Bronze (copper, hornbeam)

It has a dark brown cap and the same dark leg, but at the same time white flesh. It grows in the deciduous forests of North America, in the south and west of Europe.

Pine

It has a dark hat, often purple, in color. The color of the pulp of this boletus is brown-red. Found in pine forests in northern Europe.

Oak

It has a gray-brown hat with light spots. It grows everywhere in oak forests.

Spruce

It has a long club-shaped leg and a chestnut-colored hat. It grows in spruce and fir forests.

The duration of the growing season of boletus depends on latitude: in the northern latitudes – from June to September, in temperate latitudes – from May to November. Most often they grow in families, and reach maturity a week after the appearance, which is a long cycle for mushrooms.

Mushroom pickers before picking must carefully study the color and appearance of the variety of boletus mushrooms that usually grow in the area of ​​​​the intended collection.

How to distinguish a real white mushroom

Regardless of the variety of porcini mushroom, there are several features that allow it to distinguish boletus among inedible bile and satanic mushrooms:

1. The tubular layer of the boletus is only white, milky or light yellow. The dark color of the tubular layer is a sign of inedibility.
2. The mesh on the leg of a real boletus is never dark.
3. The pulp of an edible product of light shades, does not darken at a break or cut, does not change color when pressed and after heat treatment.
4. If the tubular layer is colored off-white or pinkish, the mesh on the leg is dark brown, and the cap is brown or brown, then this is probably a gall fungus (gorchak). When broken, the flesh often darkens (but not always).
5. The satan mushroom has a bright (orange or red) tubular layer and a barrel-shaped stem with a bright red mesh in its middle part. When cut, the flesh changes color from white or yellowish to purple or blue within a few minutes. The smell of such a mushroom resembles an onion.
6. When collecting mushrooms, you can not rely on their worminess as a sign of edibility!

The main rule of every mushroom picker: if you’re not sure – don’t take it!

How to collect

To collect real edible porcini mushrooms, you must follow certain rules:

1. The best time to collect them: warm and humid weather without sudden temperature fluctuations.
2. It is better to collect mushrooms in the early morning, then juicy wet mushrooms are stored longer.
3. You can not go out to pick mushrooms in dry weather. Dry air “draws” moisture from the pulp and leads to an increase in the concentration of harmful substances in it.
4. You need to pick mushrooms only in ecologically clean areas: away from industrial zones, highways, railways, landfills, treatment facilities, fields, pastures and livestock farms.
5. No need to take wormy mushrooms. The waste products left by the worms in the pulp are almost impossible to wash or clean, so they can be poisoned.
6. Do not collect large mushrooms. Large size is a sign of maturity: the older the mushroom, the more toxic substances accumulate in it.

In addition to your own safety, it is necessary to collect mushrooms in such a way as not to harm nature:

• in order not to damage the mycelium, the find from the mycelium must be twisted or cut off;
• if the mushroom turned out to be wormy or overripe, it should not be thrown to the ground. It will be better to hang it on a small branch with a tubular layer down. So spores will spill out of it on the soil, and its dried pulp in the cold season can be useful for forest animals for food;
• poisonous mushrooms cannot be destroyed, since they are a necessary link in the forest ecosystem.

When hiking in the forest, the surrounding nature must be protected: the forest is home to a large number of living beings.

How to prepare and store

It is believed that cut mushrooms retain their useful properties for 8-10 hours after harvest. Therefore, it is necessary to clean the crop as soon as possible and start harvesting it. The method of cleaning mushrooms depends on the method of harvesting them.

To properly prepare mushrooms for harvesting, you must:

1. Immediately after collection, the lower part of the leg, if it is heavily soiled, must be cut off, and the rest of the leg and cap should be cleaned with a toothbrush from sand and soil. This must be done before the product is in the basket.
2. If you get a worm mushroom, then you should not take it. One worm can spoil a whole basket of forest products. If there are only single wormholes in the tubular part of the mushrooms, they must be cleaned. To do this, it is better to cut the mushroom in the place of the wormhole.
3. Mushrooms should not be washed before drying, as they easily become moldy during the drying process.
4. Heavily contaminated mushrooms intended for harvesting methods other than drying must be soaked in salt water for 10-15 minutes.

After cleaning, the harvesting process itself takes place. The most popular are the following harvesting methods:

• drying;
• freezing;
• canning;
• pickling;
• salting

The choice of harvesting method depends on the taste preferences of mushroom pickers. It is believed that mushrooms retain their taste and aroma best when dried, so this method is currently the most common. Dry them in the shade in the open air, in attics, in stoves, ovens, microwave ovens and special dryers. Dried porcini mushrooms can be stored for 1 year in dry rooms at an air temperature of +18°C +/- 2°C.

Useful and medicinal properties

White mushrooms are valued for their high palatability. They contain few substances indispensable for the human body, so they cannot be attributed to products that must be present in any diet. However, for vegetarians who do not consume animal protein, dried mushrooms can be a good alternative.

White mushrooms contain:

• vitamins (A, C, D, E, group B);
• minerals (potassium, sodium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, manganese, cobalt, fluorine, selenium, zinc, iodine, sulfur);
• alimentary fiber;
• polysaccharides (chitin, glycogen, beta-glucan);
• alkaloids (hercedin and skullcap);
• proteins and amino acids, including ergothioneine;
• fats, including lecithin;
• enzymes.

White mushrooms have a number of useful and medicinal properties, which include:

• dietary – low energy value (100 g of fresh porcini mushrooms contains 34 kcal);
• the ability to stimulate the secretion of the digestive glands;
• tonic properties;
• immunomodulatory action;
• antimicrobial effect;
• hypocholesterolemic properties (thanks to lecithin);
• regenerating properties (due to ergothioneine);
• antioxidant effect (due to beta-glucan);
• wound healing effect (externally).

In medicine, porcini mushrooms are rarely used as a medicine. The main indications for their treatment are:

• cancer prevention. According to statistics, women who eat mushrooms regularly are less likely to get breast cancer. This fact suggests that they have anti-cancer properties, probably due to their high sulfur content associated with polysaccharides;
• diet therapy for tuberculosis. The immunomodulatory, antimicrobial and tonic properties of mushrooms strengthen the weakened immune system of patients;
• atherosclerosis. The lecithin contained in porcini mushrooms lowers the level of cholesterol in the blood;
• frostbite. An aqueous extract of dried mushrooms when used externally helps to restore the skin after frostbite.

Before using mushrooms for medical purposes, it is imperative to visit a competent doctor. Mushrooms cannot replace the basic therapy of diseases: they can only be an adjunct in their complex treatment.

Hazardous properties

Fresh mushrooms contain a substance that is difficult to digest – chitin, so they are classified as heavy food, the digestion of which requires increased work of all digestive glands. There is no chitin in dried porcini mushrooms, so the benefits of protein in this way prepared products are much higher than when they are consumed fresh or heat-treated.

Difficulty in digestion of mushrooms is the basis for limiting their consumption or refusing to take them. Contraindications to their use are:

• children (up to 12 years) and old age;
• pregnancy and lactation;
• diseases of the digestive tract (gastritis, colitis, pancreatitis, cholelithiasis, digestive disorders);
• idiosyncrasy;
• allergic reactions.

Fresh young white forest products do not contain harmful substances. Toxic substances can accumulate in the pulp of mushrooms if they:

• overripe;
• affected by diseases, worms and other pests;
• poorly cleaned;
• grow in industrial areas, near busy highways, landfills, cesspools, agricultural land or livestock enterprises;
• not harvested within 8-10 hours after collection;
• preserved without observance of sterilization regimes.

When eating such porcini mushrooms in food, side effects are possible:

• digestive disorders (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea);
• increased body temperature;
• stomach ache;
• weakening of the pulse;
• coldness of the fingers and toes;
• neurological disorders (confusion, impaired sensitivity or motor activity).

If the sterilization regimen is not followed, when canning poorly cleaned mushrooms, botulinum toxin can accumulate in the product, which causes paralysis of the respiratory muscles, which can lead to death.

Cooking application

In cooking, mushrooms are used in raw, frozen and dried form, in the form of canned food, pickles. They are boiled, fried, stewed, baked. Reviews of porcini mushroom lovers in various forums indicate that it is preferable to use dried mushrooms for cooking various mushroom dishes. The most popular dishes among them are porcini mushroom soup and mushroom sauce. It is in these dishes that they are revealed, showing all their taste and aromatic qualities.

White mushroom soup

A handful of dried mushrooms are soaked for 30 minutes in milk, washed thoroughly, then boiled for 15-20 minutes. Chopped onions and carrots are fried in a pan, then pre-boiled porcini mushrooms are added. After 10 minutes of frying, the contents of the pan, along with chopped potatoes, are poured into a saucepan. Cook until potatoes are ready. Served with herbs and sour cream.

Mushroom sauce

A handful of dried gifts of the forest is poured with water for 1,5 hours, after which the water is drained and the product is thoroughly washed. After that, pour 1 liter of fresh water and boil for about an hour. Fry the onion in a pan until golden brown, add boiled mushrooms, fry under the lid for about 15 minutes. While stirring with a whisk, introduce 3 tbsp. tablespoons of flour, then diluted with mushroom broth to the desired consistency. Add sour cream, herbs and spices to taste. This sauce goes well with pilaf, pasta dishes, buckwheat porridge, meat.

There are a lot of recipes for dishes from mushrooms in different forms – these are soups, and pilaf, and roasts, and pies, and sauces. All these recipes combine a unique aroma with nutty notes and a memorable rich mushroom taste.

Conclusions

Boletus is a unique forest product, a source of protein. Their high taste value with low calorie content makes it possible to widely use these gifts of the forest in cooking, and the presence of extractives, sulfur, beta-glucan, ergothioneine, lecithin, vitamins and minerals – to be used in the complex treatment of serious diseases (oncology, tuberculosis, atherosclerosis).

The presence of a large amount of chitin in the shells of mushrooms makes it difficult to digest their proteins. Therefore, there are a number of contraindications for the use of these products. Part of the problem of difficult digestibility is solved by drying mushrooms, which facilitates the bioavailability of mushroom proteins.

To enjoy delicious forest white products, you need to be able to properly collect, harvest and store them. Before going out into the forest for mushrooms, you need to replenish your knowledge base with valuable information about the rules for collecting them so that delicious food does not turn out to be dangerous. When buying ready-made mushrooms (dried, salted, canned), preference should be given to products from industrial manufacturers, and not random handicraft culinary specialists.