Honey mushrooms are considered to be one of the most famous agaric mushrooms.
Of course, in frozen or pickled form, they can be easily purchased in a supermarket, but a mushroom grown in artificial conditions has not the same taste and aroma as its forest counterpart.
However, you need to very well understand what mushrooms are to collect and eat them without risking their lives.
Where and when to collect fungi, description of mushrooms
"Honey agarics" - This is a popular name that applies to different families and types of mushrooms, similar in appearance but growing in different places at different times. We can say that one or another variety of mushrooms can be met in almost any latitude, except, perhaps, only in the permafrost zone.
As the name suggests, these mushrooms usually grow in large groups on stumps and trees (living or dead), but there are also species that feel comfortable near some shrubs or weakened trees, on forest edges and even in a meadow.
The answer to the question, when the mushrooms grow, follows from the name of their most famous species, respectively, it is possible to collect mushrooms almost all year round: common honey agarics - from August to November, meadow meadow - from May to June and from September to October, summer - from August to October, autumn - from August to October, winter - from September to November.
In general, it is easy to recognize the honeydew. It is a mushroom with a flexible, thin and fairly long (sometimes up to 15 cm) stem, brown (from light honey to dark, depending on the age and place of growth) in color, usually decorated with a ringlet skirt.
The cap is lamellar, elegant, usually rounded down. The shape of the cap in an adult mushroom resembles a smooth umbrella; in the young, the hemisphere is covered with small scales. The tone of the cap in various species can be creamy, yellow or even reddish. This is a general description, characteristic of all species of honey agaric.
Why you need to be able to distinguish the mushrooms from the "twins"
For all its attractiveness, collecting mushrooms is fraught with serious risk, for these mushrooms have many "twins", which only a sufficiently experienced mushroom picker can recognize.
There are false and edible mushrooms, and although only one species is truly poisonous among the false mushrooms, the rest belong to inedible or conditionally edible mushrooms, however, in order to avoid a dubious specimen in your basket, it is better to know what you are collecting.
Did you know? The poison of sulfur-yellow mozhnopenok can seriously injure the digestive system.
To realize the danger of false mushrooms, it’s enough to ponder their very name. These are mushrooms, very similar to their edible counterparts, they grow in the same conditions and in the same period of time as the true mushrooms.
Mushroom pickers argue that there are no uniform rules by which an edible mushroom can be distinguished from a poisonous one, you just need to clearly learn the signs of both, and learn to recognize them on the spot.
Carefully read the description of the edible mushroom and its twin in the catalog or on a specialized website, review the drawings and photographs of both, make sure that all the differences and characteristic features are clear to you, and only after that go hunting.
Do not forget the immutable rule of the mushroom picker about the presumption of guilt: any doubt means that the mushroom must be thrown away immediately.
How to distinguish ordinary mushrooms from false
For novice mushroom pickers, an important question is how to distinguish edible mushrooms from false ones.
This can be done by various characteristics - both by external (shape, color, etc.), and by smell and even taste.
Appearance experience
The most characteristic feature, which allows to distinguish edible garlic from false, is the presence of the so-called "skirts" (membranous ring on the leg), which is absent in false specimens.
Inedible mushrooms are usually brighter, "causing" caps than edible ones. There are possible and brick-red, and sulfur-yellow tones, while edible shade is modest and undefeated.
In false agaric honey, unlike edible, there are no characteristic scales on the hat. Although we said above that the scales have the ability to fade with the age of honeydew, and thus, you will not see this distinctive feature in old mushrooms.
But, firstly, honey mushrooms grow in large quantities, and in the general “bouquet” you can always find younger individuals, secondly, it is better when the edible fungus is distinguished by the presence of one or another trait rather than its absence (there are scales - to take), for it is better to mistakenly throw away the true shade than to inadvertently feast on the false.
Look at the hat under the hat. In false honey agarics, the plates are yellow or dark olive, in edible ones they are of a pleasant yellowish-white or cream color.
Mushroom smell
Inedible and poisonous mushrooms have a disgusting earthy smell, the true smell of mushrooms is pleasant.
Finally, the pulp of edible honey agaric is pleasant to the taste, while the false agarics are distinctly bitter.
However, recognizing poisonous mushrooms to taste is quite a risky exercise, it is better not to resort to it.
Taste of honey agaric
In essence, a careful study of the findings in all the parameters described above will avoid errors. And yet it must be borne in mind that if an experienced lover of a quiet hunt easily notices the differences between two outwardly similar mushrooms, then the novice collector should be especially careful, because concepts like color, smell and taste are perceived differently by different people.
Did you know? Symptoms of poisoning by false specimens are felt in a couple of hours. The first manifestation is headache, then dizziness, nausea, vomiting, accompanied by a sharp pain in the abdominal cavity. Keep calm and consult a doctor immediately. The poison of false experiments is not fatal, but ignoring the symptoms in some cases does not exclude death.
To avoid such problems, before going on the “hunt”, very carefully study the question of exactly which mushrooms you intend to collect at this time of year and in this particular forest, when and how such mushrooms grow.
As mentioned above, various edible species of mushrooms grow in different places and at different times, the same applies to twins.
For example, winter garland belongs to very late mushrooms, its fruiting begins at the end of autumn and can last all winter, therefore, let's say, in January (honey agarics appear after a little warming) in almost dead forest such mushroom is quite recognizable.
But the only truly dangerous poisonous mushroom mentioned by us among the false mushrooms is the sulfur-yellow shade, which can be mistaken for an autumn shade. But in fact, the differences between these mushrooms are quite significant, you just need to be careful, careful and common sense.
Most of the mushroom encyclopedias put maximum emphasis on the description of a mushroom, say, open mushroom, at best accompanying it with a color pattern. To read such literature is not enough.
You must see the mushroom "alive" or at least consider the maximum number of its photos, both professional and amateur. The appearance of the fungus varies greatly with age; representatives of the same species vary quite significantly depending on the place of growth.
Important! Consider different photos - both edible mushrooms and poisonous, read the description, study all the little things and, if you feel in doubt, choose to collect something more safe and recognizable!
Peculiarities of drinking experience, how many boiled collected mushrooms
Edible mushrooms are an excellent delicacy, but the preparation of these mushrooms for food has some peculiarities.
First of all, you need to keep in mind that the leg of the mushroom, especially its lower part, is quite tough, so gourmets eat only the cap of this mushroom. Mushrooms can be used to make soups, fry, pickle or salt.
Freshly harvested mushrooms quickly darken, so they need to be processed immediately. If you want to make harvesting, mushrooms after clearing forest debris and removing old, wormy or damaged specimens, you can send to freezer (better to use fast deep freeze), where they can be stored for a year.
The second method is the simplest workpiece - drying. You can dry the mushrooms in the open air, either to speed up the process - with the help of a special dryer, or in an ajar oven on minimal heat.
In all other cases, the mushrooms are thoroughly washed under running water. Next, go down to boiling salted water and cook for five minutes. The resulting foam, which is a coagulated protein, must be removed with a slotted spoon.
Then the water is drained, a new one is collected, again brought to a boil, and in it the mushrooms are boiled for about half an hour, until the mushrooms settle to the bottom of the pan. After that, they are thrown into a colander, freed from excess water and only then used to prepare various dishes.
Important! The water in which the mushrooms were boiled (both the first and the second) cannot be used.
