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Photos of shiitake mushrooms show fruiting bodies that are very unusual in appearance, which look like champignons, but belong to a completely different species. For Our Country, shiitake is a fairly rare species, and you can meet it on an artificial plantation much more often than in natural conditions.
What is shiitake
Shiitake, or Lentitulaedodes, is an Asian mushroom that grows mainly in Japan and China, but is widely known throughout the world. In addition to excellent taste, it has medicinal properties. Traditional oriental medicine believes that it activates the life force of a person and helps the body protect itself from most diseases.
Description of shiitake mushrooms
The appearance of Asian mushrooms is quite recognizable. They can be distinguished from other varieties by the shape and color of the cap, by the stem, and also by the places of growth.
What do shiitake mushrooms look like?
Shiitake is a medium-sized Japanese forest mushroom. Its cap can reach 15-20 cm in diameter, it is convex and semicircular in shape, fleshy and dense. In young fruit bodies, the edges of the cap are even, in mature ones they are thin and fibrous, slightly turned. From above, the cap is covered with dry velvety skin with small white scales. At the same time, in adult mushrooms, the skin is denser and thicker than in young ones, and in old fruiting bodies it can crack severely. The photo of the shiitake mushroom shows that the color of the hat is brownish-brown or coffee, light or darker.
The underside of the cap near the fruiting body is covered with white thin plates, quite frequent, darkening to a dark brown hue when pressed. In young fruiting bodies, the plates are completely covered with a thin membrane, which subsequently subsides.
The photo of Chinese shiitake mushrooms shows that the stem of the fruiting bodies is rather thin, no more than 1,5-2 cm in girth, straight and narrowed towards the base. In height, it can stretch from 4 to 18 cm, its surface is fibrous, and its color is beige or light brown. Usually on the stem you can see the fringe left over from the protective cover of the young mushroom.
If you break the cap in half, then the flesh inside will be dense, fleshy, creamy or white in color. Shiitake are quite weighty mushrooms, one large fruiting body can reach up to 100 g by weight.
How shiitake grows
Shiitake are mainly distributed in Southeast Asia – in Japan, China and Korea, they are found in the Far East. You can meet the mushroom singly or in small groups on tree trunks or dry stumps, fruiting bodies form a symbiosis with wood and receive nutrients from it. Most often, the mushroom chooses maple or oak for growth, it can also grow on willow and beech wood, but it cannot be seen on coniferous trees.
The bulk of the fruiting bodies appear in the spring or autumn after heavy rains. In conditions of high humidity, the fungus grows most actively.
Where do shiitake mushrooms grow in Our Country?
On the territory of Our Country, shiitake is not very common – you can meet them in natural conditions only in the Far East and Primorsky Krai. Mushrooms appear on Mongolian oak and Amur linden, they can also be seen on chestnuts and birches, hornbeams and maples, poplars and mulberries. Fruiting bodies appear mainly in spring, and fruiting continues until late autumn.
Since shiitake are very popular in cooking and are considered valuable from a medical point of view, they are also grown in Our Country in specially equipped farms. Plantations are located in the Voronezh, Saratov and Moscow regions, it is from there that they supply fresh shiitake to markets and shops, which can be purchased for their own purposes.
An interesting feature of the mushroom is that it grows very quickly. The fruit body reaches full ripeness in just 6-8 days, so the cultivation of the Japanese mushroom is carried out on a volumetric scale, which is not too difficult. In artificial conditions, mushrooms bear fruit throughout the year, this is considered very successful, given the high popularity of shiitake. They are even more in demand than champignons or oyster mushrooms.
Types of shiitake
In fact, shiitake are monotypic species – this means that they do not have similar or related species. However, in appearance, the Japanese mushroom is often confused with meadow or common champignon, the varieties are very similar in structure of the cap and stem.
Champignon also has a medium-sized cap up to 15 cm in diameter, convex-prostrate in adulthood, dry to the touch and with small brown scales on the surface of the cap. At first, the color at the top of the champignon is white, but with age it acquires a brownish tint. The stem of the fruiting body reaches 10 cm in length, does not exceed 2 cm in girth, is even and cylindrical in shape, slightly tapering towards the base. Often on the stem you can see the remains of a thin wide ring.
But at the same time, it is very simple to distinguish champignon from shiitake in natural growing conditions. Firstly, champignons always grow on the ground, they prefer nutritious soils rich in humus, they are found in meadows and forest edges. Mushrooms do not grow on trees, but shiitake can only be seen on stumps and trunks. In addition, Japanese mushrooms are found in nature in the spring, while the fruiting of champignons begins in June.
The use of shiitake mushrooms
The Japanese mushroom is not just grown on the territory of Our Country in industrial quantities on artificial plantations. It is very popular in cooking.
It can be found:
- in soups, sauces and marinades;
- in garnishes for meat and fish dishes;
- in combination with seafood;
- as a separate product;
- as part of rolls and sushi.
In stores, shiitake can be found in two forms – fresh and dried. In Japan and China, it is customary to consume fruiting bodies mostly fresh, mostly raw immediately after harvest, Asians believe that only fresh fruiting bodies have an unusual spicy taste. In European countries, shiitake is used in cooking mainly in dried form, they are pre-soaked before cooking, and then added to soups or fried.
In food use, the caps of Japanese mushrooms are more popular than the legs. The structure of the latter is too hard and fibrous, but the pulp of the caps is tender and soft, very pleasant to the taste. Fresh and dried fruiting bodies emit a pleasant mushroom aroma with a slight hint of radish and decorate culinary dishes in terms of not only taste, but also smell.
It is impossible not to mention the medical use. Due to their diverse chemical composition, they are highly valued in traditional and folk medicine. Shiitake extracts are used to fight multiple sclerosis, oncological tumors and other dangerous diseases – the medicinal value of mushrooms is officially recognized.
Caloric value
Although the chemical composition of shiitake is very rich and rich, the nutritional value of mushrooms is very small. 100 g of fresh pulp contains only 34 kcal, while shiitake have a large amount of valuable protein and perfectly saturate.
The calorie content of dried fruit bodies is much higher. Since there is practically no moisture in them, nutrients are in greater concentration, and 100 kcal are already present in 296 g of dried pulp.
Conclusion
Photos of shiitake mushrooms should be studied in order to distinguish Japanese mushrooms from ordinary champignons in the store, and even more so in natural conditions. Their appearance is quite recognizable, mushroom pulp has an unusual, but pleasant taste. They bring colossal benefits to the body, which is why they are so highly valued all over the world.
