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Anyone who has ever collected mushrooms knows that each specimen can turn out to be wormy. There is nothing unusual about this. Fruiting bodies are nutritious food for many insects, more precisely for their larvae. Worms in porcini mushrooms (or mushrooms) are perhaps the most unpleasant “surprise” for lovers of quiet hunting. However, there are ways that can help solve this problem.
Can white mushroom be wormy
According to the research of mycologists, almost all representatives of the forest kingdom related to edible (including porcini mushrooms) can potentially be wormy. Even the toxins contained in them, which can cause serious poisoning of the human body, are harmless to insects.
Why white mushrooms are wormy
As soon as the fruiting bodies appear from the ground, they are immediately attacked by mushroom mosquitoes or sciara flies. These are small insects, up to 0,5 mm in size, living in large numbers in forests.
Adult specimens do not cause any harm to the fruiting bodies, since they have a sucking mouth apparatus that is not adapted for the consumption of coarse food, which is the pulp of legs or caps. But already their larvae, emerging from eggs after a few days, have such a structure of the oral cavity that they are able to feed on mushroom pulp.
Worms are much larger than adult insects (their size is about 8-10 mm) and have a very high rate of food consumption. Literally in 3-4 hours, several copies can completely ruin a high-quality young boletus.
Worms eat porcini mushrooms with pleasure, since it is in them that the concentration of protein is maximum. In mushrooms, it can reach up to 30%. In addition, it is their fruiting bodies that contain carbohydrates, amino acids, fiber and essential oils in sufficient quantities. All this makes the boletus one of the most attractive for worms.
Roughly speaking, mushrooms for worms are the most delicious of the entire mushroom kingdom. In addition, they are loved not only by insect larvae, but also by other animals, mainly rodents and birds. For example, squirrels most often prepare their stocks for the winter mainly from them.
For mushrooms, the presence of worms is not evil. On the contrary, thanks to the larvae, their reproduction occurs. By eating the fruiting body, they contribute to a more rapid spread of spores. Eating the pulp of the cap, the worms “shake out” the spores from the hymenophore.
How to identify a worm white mushroom
Determining whether a wormy boletus or not is quite simple. You just need to look at its place of cut. The presence of parasites will be indicated by numerous round holes, pits and passages that are perfectly visible on the cut.
Depending on the number of holes, irregularities, moves, and other things, the degree of damage to the boletus by worms is determined. If it is replete with a large number of holes and “burrows”, it is left in the forest. Usually older fruiting bodies are too wormy, although there are exceptions.
In dry and sunny weather, mushroom flies and mosquitoes are more active and lay many eggs. On the contrary, if the weather is cloudy and rainy, the number of wormy mushrooms is significantly less.
What to do with worm mushroom
In this case, the following options are possible:
- When only the cut point is damaged, you can try to remove part of the leg. Often, insects begin the process of “eating” the fungus from the bottom up. It is possible that by removing part of the leg, it will be possible to get to the place where the worms have not yet penetrated.
- Sometimes part of the cap may be damaged, since insects could enter the fruiting body from above. In this case, the damaged part is simply cut out, and the rest is sent to the trash.
- If there are so many places of damage, but they are small, you can also take the trophy with you, and process it at home, getting rid of the parasites inside.
- If the worm damage is too extensive, then it is best not to take it with you, but leave it in the forest. In this case, it is not necessary to throw away the fruiting body, you can string it on a branch so that squirrels can use it.
Is it possible to eat wormy white mushrooms
The presence of worms in white mushrooms does not make them poisonous. Their fruiting bodies can be eaten if properly processed beforehand. At the same time, you need to understand that not only the larvae themselves, but also their metabolic products, will have to be removed from the fungus.
These procedures involve the presence of a liquid, for example, water, which could penetrate into all the pores made by the worms and wash out all the excess components that are in it from the fruiting body. Given the small size of the moves made by the worms, we can talk about a fairly long exposure to the liquid used to clean the mushrooms. That is, the process of removing worms and the consequences of their activities will not be quick.
Is it possible to dry wormy white mushrooms
Drying porcini mushrooms leads to a decrease in the amount of moisture in them, which significantly worsens the attractiveness of the fruiting body for larvae. If a person, eating dried mushrooms for food, can take as much water as he wants from the outside in order to restore their softness to the fruiting bodies, then insect larvae simply have nowhere to take this water.
Consequently, dried mushrooms become inedible for worms, and they try to leave them. Therefore, drying is used as one of the ways to remove worms.
How to remove worms from porcini mushrooms
To get rid of unwanted “guests” in mushrooms, you do not need to make significant efforts. It is enough to carry out a relatively simple treatment to get rid of worms in porcini mushrooms. There are two main ways how this can be done.
The first method is to process wormy white mushrooms with salt water. To implement it, it is necessary to cut the fruit into large pieces (2-3 cm thick) and simply pour it with a solution of salt water. The concentration of salt in this case is 1-2 tbsp. l. for 1 liter of water.
It is necessary to soak white mushrooms from worms for 2-3 hours. After the end of such a procedure, all insect larvae leave the fruiting body and float to the surface. Moreover, such a concentration of salt can kill them. The cut fruit bodies are taken out of the container, and the solution itself is drained.
After the porcini mushrooms are extracted from the saline solution, they are washed, slightly dried and cooked in any way: boiled, fried, pickled, salted, etc.
The second way to get rid of worms is the most common drying. Literally 2-3 days after its start, the fruiting bodies will slightly wilt, and the insect larvae will leave them themselves, since the environment for their existence will no longer be so nutritious. Dried mushrooms will just need to be thoroughly rinsed before using them.
Conclusion
Worms in white mushrooms are common and should not be taken as a serious problem. It can be said that this is a normal state for this species, since the taste qualities of mushrooms for insect larvae are very attractive. It is relatively easy to expel worms from porcini mushrooms – just soak the fruiting bodies in saline for 2-3 hours or simply dry them.
