Mushroom pig fat: photos and description

The fat pig got its name for the similarity of the hat to the pork ear - in some areas this mushroom is called. However, some argue that they look more like cow ears, and call these mushrooms cowsheds. Although these gifts of the forest do not belong to the category of delicacies, their use in Russia is traditional, both in boiled and salted form.

Below are photos and descriptions of mushrooms of sows, as well as information about their habitats.

Leaf or velvet plate (fat pig)

In all of Russia, in the common people, this mushroom is called a pig, and in Poland, a pig and a gray house are gray.

Velvet platelet grows in all kinds of forests, mainly located on uneven terrain. The collection time for this species of mushrooms begins from the beginning of summer and lasts until the fall, for the most part they are found in heaps, sometimes very large and always hidden under foliage. Pigs rarely grow under trees, and almost always in those places of glades, where for some reason leaves are densely packed. For the same reason, since the leaves do not fly far from young bushes, sows often fall under them, at the very roots. Many people consider the fat pig’s mushroom poisonous, but locals in the middle provinces, yes, it seems, and throughout Russia, although they recognize the pig more than any other mushroom hard for the stomach, but eat it without harm.

The characteristic features of a velvet platelet consist of a hat with a size of 5 to 12 cm, convex in youth, and then flat and finally concave, with the edges curled down.

Look at the photo of a fat pig: the color of the mushroom cap is brownish, or dark lead, or, finally, yellow-brown, subsequently turning often quite pale yellow, but as its surface is always soft, somewhat moist and finely covered with a fluff, it has a velvety appearance . The plates of various lengths are thick, strong, whitish, and sometimes brownish, matching the color of the hat. The juice, which is contained in them and in the flesh of a hat, is white, and it tastes sweet in youth, bitter in old age. Leg with a height of 1 to 4 cm, sometimes attached to the side of the cap, fleshy, dense, fragile, light brown or dirty yellow, fairly thick and often made hollow.

As can be seen from the photo and description, the pigs are very similar to all the lamellae, but the main difference is in the curved edges of the cap. The meat of the velvet plate is soft in appearance, dry, friable and stiff inside. By color, it is white in young mushrooms, and grayish in old ones. In its raw form, during the youth of the fungus, its taste is watery-sweet, and under old age it becomes pepper. As for the smell, it is constantly kept slightly aromatic, coniferous.

Dryness and harshness of meat is caused by the fact that in good kitchens this mushroom is sometimes used, for lack of the best, but only at its earliest age. In the common people, it is not neglected and is often eaten in large quantities both boiled and fried in oil or lard, and in particular it is often crushed with fasting posts.

Look at the photo of a fat pig, and compare them with photographs of other platelets.