Summer is the season of vacations, summer cottages and mushroom pickers. Who doesn’t like to feast on fresh, hand-picked mushrooms? But not all mushrooms are created equal! So how not to make a mistake in your choice and collect a whole basket? Read our instructions!
- You need to go for mushrooms early in the morning. If your “early morning” is 10 o’clock, then you are not a mushroom picker. The most convenient time for picking mushrooms is 6 in the morning, or at least 7.
- The most favorable weather for the appearance of mushrooms is warm rain in the sun. That is, if there was a fine warm rain in the evening, it means that in the morning there will probably be a good harvest.
- If you don’t know, don’t take the mushroom. At any slightest suspicion, it is better to just leave the mushroom in the forest. Remember: life is more precious.
- It is best to collect mushrooms in baskets made of willow twigs or in birch bark baskets. In cellophane bags and buckets, they quickly deteriorate due to the lack of air exchange.
- In no case do not take already rotten mushrooms. Even if the rotten part is removed, the taste and health of the mushroom may suffer.
- Overripe and soft mushrooms, as well as wormy mushrooms, are also not worth taking.
When picking mushrooms, especially such valuable ones as porcini and others, never tear the moss, do not break the legs along with the mycelium. In the dug places, the naked mycelium, which has been growing for 10 years, will dry out and die under the rays of the sun. There will be no mushrooms either this year or next.
You can not eat unknown mushrooms, among them poisonous ones can be found. To this group, first of all, it is necessary to include several types of lamellar mushrooms: pale toadstool, fly agaric (red, panther, poisonous), false mushrooms (sulfur-yellow and brick-red), poisonous gray entholoma. Of the tubular mushrooms, the satanic mushroom is poisonous. The alkaloid muscarine contained in the red fly agaric in a dose of 0,8 grams and the most dangerous poisonous substances, phalloidin and amanitin, contained in the pale toadstool, in a dose of 0,02-0,03 grams, are fatal to humans!
There are so-called inedible mushrooms. They are not poisonous, but only have an unpleasant taste or smell. These are, for example, gall mushroom, false chanterelle, inedible boletus, mouse ryadovki, earthy, fibrous and some others. You can recognize them by their taste, but I would not advise you to do this. It is better to take a closer look: if the mushroom itself looks a little like itself, it means that it is inedible. Especially false chanterelles bear little resemblance to their edible counterparts.
Some edible mushrooms contain bitter or even poisonous substances that are destroyed or washed away after appropriate processing. Such mushrooms are called conditionally edible. These include a slender pig, a pink wave, and some types of russula. They should be boiled for 7-10 minutes, pour out the broth, and rinse the mushrooms in running water. After such processing, they are quite suitable for food, and many even have a very pleasant taste.
In their composition, mushrooms are close to meat, and therefore they are sometimes called “forest meat”. In terms of their chemical composition, they are close to vegetables, and in terms of amino acid composition, they are similar to products of animal origin. It should be remembered that mushrooms are heavy food, so you should not eat more than 200 grams of fresh or 100 grams of salted or 20 grams of dried mushrooms at a time.
In terms of nutritional value, mushrooms can be divided into four categories: first – porcini mushroom, camelina and real milk mushroom; the second – mushrooms of average quality (boletus, boletus, oil can, bruise); the third – mushrooms, russules, chanterelles, mushrooms; the fourth – low-value mushrooms (some types of russula, pink volnushka, thin pig, summer mushroom and others).
The most versatile way to cook mushrooms is as follows:
- Peel each mushroom from earth, needles, leaves and put in a container with clean water.
- Rinse the mushrooms in this water, then drain the water and rinse the mushrooms again under running water.
- Pour fresh water and put mushrooms on fire. After the water boils and you remove the foam, drain the water again.
- Pour in new water, put it on the fire again.
- Cook until cooked (can be found in the manual for each type of mushroom).
- After the mushrooms are cooked, they can be fried, pickled, salted, and generally do whatever you want.
- The only mushroom you need to peel off is an oil can.
Fried mushrooms can be stored for the whole winter. Well-fried, without onions and spices, the mushrooms are tightly placed in a glass jar and poured with ghee, the butter will solidify, and this is the whole preservation. Keep in a cool place until ready to use. Bon Appetit!