Latvian mushrooms and their recipes

I am a mushroom; On which the dew of heaven falls every now and then.

/ Fords /

Other times I don't understand whether people go mushrooming to really get mushrooms or have a good time and get a prize that may not matter, just the fact that mushrooms have been found. 

Mushrooming is a great thing, you can combine the pleasant with the useful. A real mushroom waiter waits for the first thing in the summer, the sun, so that the joys of mushrooms begin.

I learned to mushroom as a child. Thanks to my parents, mushrooming is associated with pleasant memories for me. It was a whole process, with a picnic and a day in the woods, and I looked forward to that time. After enjoying his performance in the winter, there was even greater joy.

Freshly cooked potatoes, with fresh chanterelle sauce, sounds delicious because delicious. Or mushroom cream soup. I already ran saliva in my mouth. 

In this article, let’s look at what mushrooms are; their varieties, recipes and interesting facts.

Mushrooms

Mushrooms do not belong to the plant kingdom or the animal kingdom, but form a separate - mushroom kingdom. 

For some time, mushrooms have been separated from the plant kingdom, because they do not contain the green pigment characteristic of plants - chlorophyll and feed heterotrophically using either already dead organisms or feeding on living organisms. 

Mushrooms are very diverse in size and structure. The simplest fungi can be represented by a bare protoplast in the host cell. But usually, in most cases, the body of the mushroom is made up of fine threads - hyphae. The hyphae may be undivided into cells (less developed fungi) or may be divided into cells (higher developed fungi). The set of hyphae forms a mycelium or fungus, often seen as a white, gray, yellow or, less commonly, reddish weave or network.

The fungi multiply by spores that form on the growths or branches of the fungus as well as on or on the fruiting bodies. Fruit bodies in everyday life are also commonly called mushrooms, without even thinking about the fungus that grows in the forest rot or other substrate. 

The fungus of many fungi forms a close connection with the roots of various plants - mycorrhiza. With the help of mycorrhiza, mushrooms receive nutrients from plants - mainly carbohydrates, but plants also absorb nutrients and water with the help of mushrooms. 

Certain species of fungi are associated with certain tree species. It already shows in mushroom names, such as aspen beech, birch beech, pine beech, etc. 

The number of mushroom species in the world is definitely more than 56000. So far, about 4100 species of mushrooms have been found in Latvia - cap mushrooms, beetle mushrooms, beetle mushrooms, the rest are mainly various microscopic mushrooms. Mushroom fungi (Boletus), birch leaves (Russula), milkweed (Lactarius), fungi (Mycena), fungus (Tricholoma) and other genera are widespread in Latvian forests.

Remember that only mushrooms that we are 100% sure are edible should be eaten. I have been taught by my parents since childhood, for example. Take the ones you know and can name. And do not do, like others, cut off long ago, and ask what it's like mushrooms. It may not have been eaten, not eaten by humans, but for which animal you take away food and also disrupt the established eco-friendly system. 

Poisonous mushrooms

The most poisonous fungus in Latvia is the green fly agaric (Amanita phalloides). White fly agaric (Amanita virosa), which grows mainly in deciduous forests, is also dangerously poisonous. The deadly poisonous fungus Patocara erubescens (Inocybe erubescens) is found in spring and early summer. It contains 20 times more muscarinic than red fly agaric (Amanita muscaria).

Protected mushrooms

62 species of fungi are protected, 12 of them - species of micro-reserves. A rare fungus in Latvia is the tuber sarcosome (Sarcosoma globosum), which was considered extinct, but has been found several times in recent years. Also protected are the tufted downy mildew (Guepinia helvelloides) - growing in grasslands, on forest roads, sometimes in large groups, and Phallus hadriani - found in sandy dunes, less often in sandy places further from the sea.

The distribution and occurrence of many rare fungi are associated with natural forest habitats, as they have large living and dead trees, even moisture conditions. Mushrooms are also used as indicator species in natural forests. The young fruiting bodies of the bright golden powder (Hapalopilus croceus) are yellow or orange. This fungus grows on old oak trunks, often in cavities. Also found outside forests. The fruiting bodies of the deciduous candlestick (Artomyces pyxidata) are annual, growing on deciduous tree crystals. The presence of the candlestick indicates an old forest. Giant hardwood (Phellinus populicola) is a perennial found in old forests on living aspen trunks. Mushrooms mourn intensive logging and other habitats (grasslands, dunes) degradation.

Mushroom varieties  

Spring Mushrooms

• Spurdzži ciborija
• Bright agrene
• Bisites
• Bears
• Mare beans
• Auzene

Read more about them here >>

Summer and autumn mushrooms

• Mushroom
• Bears 
• Aspen
• Birch cubes
• Sviestbeka
• Sandbeck
• Samtbeck
• Great Guards
• Tintenes
• Celmenes
• Atmatenes
• Gypsies
• Birch leaves
• Dairy
• Gailenes
• Afillophores
• Paws

Read more about them here >>

One of the most popular mushrooms in Latvia

Gailenes

The first scientific descriptor of the species, Elias Fries, called it in 1821 Cantharellus cibarius and this name has never been changed.

Genus name Chanterelle is derived from a Latin word cantharus (Originally from Greek kantharos), which means a drinking bowl (usually with handles), a bowl or a cup. Epitets cibarius originated from the Latin "cibus", which means food.

Chanterelles are thick, initially curved upwards, with folded edges, later spreading - flat and funnel-shaped with strongly wavy edges, ovoid, yellow or pale yellow. The leaves are curly, fork-shaped, with many anastomoses, strongly sloping along the stalk, ovate. Stalk thick, usually without, less often with a cavity. The flesh is dense, slender, white, yellow in the fracture on the outside of the fruit, with a pleasant aromatic odor and a savory taste. 

Chanterelles are mushrooms that are very rarely wormy.

The common chanterelle is found in both mixed and deciduous forests from June to October. Sometimes witch rings are formed. 

Chanterelles are also one of the most popular edible mushrooms. They are used both fried and boiled, as well as marinated and salted.

Mushroom

Mushrooms are mushrooms of the beck family. Boletus edulis (Boletus edulis) is one of the tastiest and most valuable mushrooms. They are thick, firm, fleshy, hemispherical, later expanded, smooth. The surface of the hat is brown, auburn, even purple-brown. The color often depends on the growing conditions. usually for younger mushrooms the hat is lighter, for older - darker. The stalk is thick, enlarged at the bottom or barrel-shaped. The color of the stalk varies from white to brown, with a white or light brown reticulated pattern at the top.

The flesh is dense, white, does not change color in the break, with a pleasant mushroom smell and taste. The layer of tubes at the beginning of development is white (so the Russians call this mushroom white mushroom), later yellowish. Tube openings small, round.

Mushrooms are found in three to four layers from mid-June to mid-October: rarely and separately at the end of June, the harvest in mid-July, en masse in the second half of August and the first half of September in various forests and drier areas. Mycorrhiza is made up of about 50 tree species, most often spruce, pine, birch, oak. In summer it can be found in new forests and plantations, in the eyes. In autumn, deeper in the forest, near old trees, near trails and abandoned roads. Often grows in groups or families and individually.

Mushrooms are one of the mushrooms known to every mushroom and not a mushroom. They can be eaten fried, boiled, pickled and even salted.

Birch leaves

Birch leaves are a large and diverse genus of mushrooms. About 100 different species of birch leaves have been found in Latvia. 

The young fruiting bodies of birch leaves are popularly called pots or pods. The most common foliage is: white (Russula delica), variegated (Russula decolorans), spotted (Russula vesca), bog (Russula paludosa), bitter (Russula emetica) and herring (Russula xerampelina). Occurs mainly from August to October in coniferous and mixed tree forests.

Mushrooms can be pickled or salted, but they must be boiled in advance and the decoction must be drained. 

Gypsies, or rather Gypsies

Mushrooms, which I call childhood Gypsies, and the ability to recognize anywhere. Simply boiled and salted, dictated delicious.

The gypsy is initially hemispherical or ovoid, later flatly convex, straw yellow or yellow-gray, with a whitish, purple floury rim in the middle and often with a radially cracked rim. The stalk is thick, cylindrical, yellowish-white, slightly widened at the base, with a white, filmy ring at the top. The leaves are initially clay-colored, later ocher-brown. Flesh almost white, yellow in the fracture, pleasant taste and smell.

Occurs in coniferous and mixed tree forests, mainly on sandy soils, from August to November, very common.

Can be prepared in a variety of ways without prior cooking.

Interesting facts about mushrooms

• Mushroom size is often judged by the size of the fruit. For example, when we find a mushroom in the forest, we judge its size by the size of the stalk and cap, without even thinking about the size of its mushroom in the forest rot. 
• The largest fruit body in Latvia is known as the giant round-billed toad (Langermannia gigantea), which is stored in the Valdemārpils Forest Museum. It has a circumference of 166 cm and a weight of 700 g. This means that there has been a fresh puff pastry about 7 kg.
• Some mushrooms are used in folk medicine. Some countries, such as polysaccharide-K, schizophilan, polysaccharide peptide or lentinan, have government-registered adjuvant cancer therapies, but there is clinical evidence of the efficacy and safety of these extracts in humans. not approved. 
• Mushrooms can be used to dye wool and other natural fibers. Fungal dye chromophores are organic compounds and produce strong and bright colors, and all colors in the spectrum can be achieved with fungal dyes. Prior to the invention of synthetic dyes, mushrooms were a source of many textile dyes.
• Some types of fungi, polypores, loosely called fungi, have been used as firefighters (known as fungal fungi).
• Fungi and other fungi play a role in the development of new biological recovery methods (eg the use of mycorrhizae to promote plant growth) and filtration technologies (eg the use of fungi to reduce bacterial levels in contaminated plants). in water).

Mushroom recipes

• Mushroom caviar
• Oven baked mushrooms
• Chanterelle cream soup
• Mushrooms in a simple marinade
• Mushroom scones

More mushroom recipes are looking here - Mushroom dishes