Picking mushrooms or "quiet hunting" is a very pleasant and rewarding pastime if you are armed with sufficient knowledge, otherwise you risk turning from a hunter into a victim. How not to be mistaken and recognize a poisonous mushroom?
The greatest danger for inexperienced mushroom pickers is not all the well-known fly agarics and toadstools, which outwardly resemble edible poisonous mushrooms. The porcini mushroom most desirable for mushroom pickers has several counterparts among the poisonous ones. The gall mushroom is outwardly almost indistinguishable from the white one, and even an experienced mushroom picker can make a mistake. Pay attention to the lower surface of the mushroom cap: in the poisonous one it is pink, and on the cut, a piece of the cap quickly turns red. It is not for nothing that the satanic mushroom has such an ominous name. Its leg is much thicker than that of the boletus, the upper part of the leg is pinkish. Cut off the flesh of such a mushroom, and if it quickly turns red and then turns blue, throw it away immediately! The Satanic mushroom is one of the most poisonous.
Paradoxically, you can even get poisoned with good, edible mushrooms. You should not pick old, overgrown mushrooms. Poisonous substances accumulate in them, and even boletus, porcini mushrooms, boletus mushrooms can cause serious poisoning.
It is quite difficult to distinguish good from poisonous mushrooms even for experienced mushroom pickers. So, at the end of summer, mushrooms appear en masse and at the same time in the forest you can find their counterparts - poisonous sulfur-yellow and brown-red mushrooms. You should be alerted by the reddish or milky-white plates, the thickened base of the mushroom. These are the hallmarks of inedible mushrooms. Edible autumn mushrooms have a honey cap with scales, there is a white film, the purpose of which is to tie the stem of the mushroom to the edge of the cap. Brown-red honey mushrooms are distinguished by an unpleasant, pungent smell and taste, and the poison they contain affects the gastrointestinal tract.
Mushrooms such as stitches and morels are also poisonous. The poison contained in them is not destroyed by boiling and causes acute poisoning, especially in children.
There are a number of mushrooms that should not be eaten raw. These are the so-called milkmen, or milk mushrooms, our favorite mushrooms, volushki. In Western Europe, they are considered poisonous and are not eaten. You can make these mushrooms edible by prolonged soaking or boiling. Mushrooms should be soaked for several days. The broth must be drained, and the mushrooms are fried. There are about 50 types of mushrooms that, if insufficiently cooked or eaten raw, cause acute poisoning. Most unpleasantly, some types of mushrooms are completely incompatible with alcohol, which aggravates the symptoms of poisoning.
Extreme attentiveness and accuracy during a "quiet hunt" will allow you to recognize a poisonous mushroom in time and protect yourself from danger. Remember that mushrooms always grow in the same place, so if you do not damage the mycelium, next year you will find the same edible mushrooms under the coveted bush as in previous years.
