Mushrooms: popular types
Autumn breasts are the most delicious and crispy. It is in September that you can collect baskets with real breasts. Finding them is not easy, as they hide in the grass. Once there were a lot of them. From time immemorial, the mushrooms were pickled in barrels and fed on them during fasting. Now there are much fewer real breasts and now they most often grow in glades or in an open place near the forest zone under small Christmas trees.
You will learn about the forests in which the mushrooms grow, and how different types of these mushrooms look, having familiarized yourself with this material.
Aspen chest
Habitats of Aspen Breasts (Lactarius controversus): raw aspen and poplar forests. Mushrooms form mycorrhiza with willow, aspen and poplar. These mushrooms grow, as a rule, in small groups.
Season: July-October.
The hat has a diameter of 5-18 cm, sometimes up to 25 cm, fleshy with steeply turned down edges and a depressed middle, later flat-convex with a slightly deepened center. The color of the hat is white with pale pink spots and faint concentric zones. The surface in wet weather is sticky and mucous. The edges become wavy with age.
Pay attention to the photo - in this type of breast the leg is short, thick 3-8 cm high and 1.5-4 cm thick, dense and sometimes eccentric:
The leg has a white or pink color, similar to a hat, usually with yellowish spots. Often narrowed at the base.
The pulp is whitish, dense, brittle, with a very caustic milky juice and a fruity smell.
The plates are frequent, not wide, sometimes bifurcated and descending along the leg, cream or light pink. The spore powder is pinkish.
Variability. The color of the hat is white or with pink and lilac zones, often concentric. The plates are first whitish, then pinkish and later light orange.
Similar views. This type of mushroom looks like a mushroom, a real mushroom (Lactarius resimus). However, the latter has much greater value, its edges are densely fluffy and there are no pinkish plates.
Edible, 3rd category.
Cooking Methods: salting after pretreatment by boiling or soaking.
Real chest
Where the real milk mushrooms (Lactarius resimus) grow: birch and mixed forests, with birch, form mycorrhiza with birch, grow in groups.
Season: July-September.
The hat has a diameter of 6-15 cm, sometimes up to 20 cm, fleshy with steeply turned down edges and with a recess in the center, later convex-spread with a depressed central region. A distinctive feature of the species is the thick-furry or shaggy edges and the milky-white color of the cap, which eventually turns yellow or creamy with or without invisible zones. This variety of breasts may have yellowish spots.
Leg 3–9 cm long, 1.5–3.5 cm in diameter, cylindrical, smooth, white, sometimes yellowish or reddish at the base.
The pulp is white, brittle, with a pleasant odor that gives off a white milky juice, yellowing in the air and having a pungent taste. The pulp has a fruity smell.
Plate 0.5-0.8 cm wide, descending along the leg, frequent, white, later yellowish. Spore powder is white.
Similar views. According to the description, this variety of lumps is similar to a yellow lump (Lactarius scrobiculatus), which can also only have slightly shaggy edges, the color is golden yellow or dirty yellow and there is no fruity smell of pulp.
Edible, 1st category.
Cooking Methods: salting after pretreatment by boiling or soaking, can be pickled. Since ancient times in Russia, one of the most beloved and delicious mushrooms.
See how real breasts look in these photos:
Black chest
Black Mushrooms, or Nigella (Lactarius necator) - A favorite delicacy of many Russians because of the crisp state after salting. These mushrooms grow in marshy areas or near wet areas of the forest, often close to forest paths.
Where mushrooms grow black mushrooms: mixed and coniferous forests, often on clearings, forms mycorrhiza with birch, usually grow in groups.
Season: August-November.
The hat for this type of mushroom mushrooms has a diameter of 5-15 cm, sometimes up to 22 cm, first convex, then smooth with a middle indent, in young specimens with felt edges bent down, which then straighten out and can be cracked, sticky in wet weather and mucous with subtle concentric zones. A distinctive feature of the species is the dark color of the hat: olive brown or greenish black.
Leg short, thick 3-8 cm tall and 1.53 cm thick, narrowed downward, smooth, slimy, generally the same color as the hat, but lighter at the top.
As can be seen in the photo, the flesh of this variety of mushrooms is white, browning or darkening at the cut:
The flesh liberates white burning milky juice. Spore powder is yellowish.
The plates are frequent, narrow, descending to the pedicle, fork-branched, whitish or pale yellow, often with a greenish tinge, blacken when pressed.
Variability. The color of the hat, depending on the degree of maturity and geographical area, varies from completely black to brown-black.
Edible, 3rd category.
Cooking Methods: salting after pretreatment by boiling or soaking. When salted, the color of the hat becomes cherry red or violet red.
Peppercorns
Pepper (Lactarius piperatus) picking season: July-September.
The hat has a diameter of 5-15 cm, first convex, then smooth with a depressed middle, in young specimens with the edges bent down, which then straighten and become wavy. The surface is white, matte, often covered with reddish spots in the central region and cracks.
The leg is short, thick 3–9 cm high and 1.53.5 cm thick, solid and very dense, tapering at the base, with a smooth, slightly wrinkled surface.
The pulp is white, dense, but brittle, with a burning taste, gives off a white milky juice with a pepper taste, which in the air becomes olive green or bluish.
The plates are very frequent, descending along the pedicle, whitish, often with a pink tint or reddish spots, not wide, sometimes bifurcated.
Variability. The color of the hat, depending on the degree of maturity and geographical area, varies from completely white to off-white with a greenish or reddish hue. In the air, the white flesh becomes greenish yellow.
Similar views. Peppercorns look like a violin fungus (Lactarius volemus), in which the hat has a felt white or cream-white surface, the milky juice is white, not frizzy, when it becomes brown, the plates are cream or white-cream.
Cooking Methods: salting after pretreatment by boiling or soaking.
Edible, 4th category.
