Mushroom fever – to the end – what do we know about Lithuanian mushrooms?

There are nations in the world that do not like mushrooms, they do not know them. In the languages ​​of those nations (for example, English, Irish) there is only one other word that has the meaning of a mushroom. Lithuanians, such as Russians, Poles, Italians, Spanish or French, know the world of mushrooms very well. There are many popular mushroom names in Lithuanian.

“For Lithuanians, who have long worshiped trees and forests, mushrooms, mushrooms and mushrooms are now the second religion after … basketball,” jokes Jūratė Lubienė, researcher at Klaipėda University and author of the book “Lithuanian micronyms: nomination and motivation”. 1,400 words related to mushrooms.

Jonas Kasparavičius, mycologist at the Nature Research Center’s Mycology Laboratory, who has spent 25 years researching fungi, says that there may be around 1,500 species of cap mushrooms in Lithuania and each year the number is supplemented by new ones. species. There are said to be around 300 edible mushrooms, but a mycologist says that the limit of whether a mushroom is edible or not is sometimes very difficult to determine. For example, the herb is an excellent and good mushroom, and Western mycologists forbid eating it because there have been serious poisonings.

According to J. Kasparavičius, the great mushroom wave is coming to an end, but until it gets hot, you can expect to find them in October. And you can find few mushrooms, such as squirrels, but you can find soup boiling in both November and December. They grow almost every year before freezing. Last winter, his people found him in both January and February.

According to Tomas Zaleckis, head of the Kretinga regional branch of the State Forestry Company, this year the Dzukians are happy to have again taken the title of the kingdom of the Samogitia mushrooms, but it seems to him that there are more mushrooms in our country this year.

Mushrooms spoil quickly

“You can poison anyone, even a boletus, if it is not prepared properly. For example, boil boletus or squirrel potato soup and eat it all week. That’s 100 percent. It will result in poisoning. The decay products of mushrooms are poisonous, it is a perishable product. When you take them out of the forest, you must process them immediately or put them in the freezer immediately. The fungus rots at once “, says J. Kasparavičius.

According to him, poisonous mushrooms no longer appeared in Lithuania, there are about 100 species. The champion in this field is the green muskrat, who happens to be a green man every year. “Not all inedible mushrooms are poisonous. Put pine boletus in the soup and it will go bad, bitter. That’s why it doesn’t eat, not because it’s poisonous. “

According to a mycologist, almost every year people are poisoned by mushrooms. Usually there are such cases, unfortunately this year there are relatively many of them, because when mushroom fever begins, both those who know about mushrooms and those who do not.

J. Kasparavičius himself is not a fan of eating mushrooms or collecting them. “It just came to our attention then. I want them to grow a lot, spread many pairs. Like when someone feeds me,” he admitted.

Rautia should be used with caution

J. Kasparavičius believes that there is not a big difference between grilling and slicing mushrooms. But to tear them you have to be careful, favor the sides. “We don’t collect a lot of mushrooms like squid, myrtle. They dry out or rot, but they don’t shrink year after year. If you leave the stem cut off, the rot will not spread anywhere and the fungus will not disappear. For hundreds of millions of years, fungi have already adapted to everything ”, says the mycologist.

According to him, it is wrong for people to step on, break moss, pick very small boletus, carve white bushes a few centimeters in diameter from the ground when a transparent hat is not visible. Eating them for a mycologist is the same as eating newborn chickens. Unnecessary disintegration of the mycelium and other years may not grow there.

People also say that it is possible to grow boletus; It is said that after cleaning the mushrooms, their remains should be placed under the bedding, but experts say that this only breaks the bedding. However, it is suggested to simply spread the mushroom residue.

“The more boletus mushrooms there are, the more likely it is that boletus will grow and grow in that location. So it would be good if there were at least one other sloppy or wormy boletus left. If you cut the mushroom and it has worms, wash it somewhere on a twig, because it scatters the pores even dead. Only the lid should be vertical, from the bottom down. If you go back to collecting mushrooms in the forest, the remains should be left and not taken to the trash “, explained the mycologist.

Where do the balevics come from?

Invasive balsevichs fungi, which people also call boletus cousins, grow on Curonian Spit. J. Kasparavičius confirmed that these mushrooms are representatives of boletus.

The mushrooms are called balsevičius because they were found at the end of the Soviet era by Viktoras Balsevičius in Alksnynė, near the barracks where the ecological tax is collected. Those mushrooms grew at a single point for a decade, and then they began to spread in all directions, they even jumped to the mainland, they were found in the Šilutė district.

“The Klaipėda mushroom pickers take ferries every day and come back with baskets full of mushrooms. They grow very abundantly, but only in pine forests. There are some heat waves, which appear in the second half of August, the first half of September.

These are truly non-native mushrooms, their homeland is the east coast of the United States, from Canada south.

We may not know how they got to us. My version: because the port of Klaipeda is very close, the wind could bring very light and small pores from the ships during storms. The birds couldn’t bring them because they didn’t fly from America to Europe. Birds that can fly long distances do not multiply. If they had arrived by plane, they would have spread somewhere near Vilnius ”, considered the mycologist J. Kasparavičius.

The forest is visited like a market

T. Zaleckis says that foresters experience discomfort due to fungi due to their direct economic activity: repairing roads, performing fire-related preventive work, especially at Curonian Spit. The cars are equipped with firebreaks as there are not enough parking spaces.

“It happens that you come to a lumber yard or you repair a certain section of the road, and there are 7-8 cars standing there.

The trend is that good access roads, especially in the Vaineikiai, Grūšlaukė and Darbėnai forests, where there are more fungal sites, are full of cars. Like on a market day, “said the forester.

According to the interlocutor, it is still noticeable that some mushrooms leave debris in the forest, but most are already more conscious. There are also mushroom resorts, currently the Polish resort is especially popular. But foresters have noted that people are so proud of the abundance of mushrooms that they only collect mushroom heads.

In the past, rangers had service guns and pistols. When people got lost in the forest, they were asked to orient themselves to the sound of the gunshot in the air, and they explained that they could not go because they were not reporting the mushrooms.

“Recently, a man was searched for two days in the Rietavas forests. He came across a whole basket of mushrooms that he didn’t drop. I would like to advise the mushrooms to remember to charge the phone before going to the forest, ”said the ranger.

However, in the times of modern technology, there are far fewer people lost in the forests. Also, there are paths and roads in the woods that can be used to get out of the forest.

Fungi remain as medicine

“My father always told me: ‘Bend, Jūrateli, to every mushroom: I will be proud, I will not bow down, the forest will be angry and will not give good mushrooms.’ That’s what I do. I lean towards some bad mushroom, what kind of chicken or currant, look, and boletus or oregano next to the sterile … And the grandmother taught: “In the sea, go to the forest only with white clothes and clean and light clothes.” That’s what I do: all types of beetles attack less, ticks are easier to detect on light clothing “, – J.Lubien shares her proliferation experience.

He said he was surprised to realize that even in the 21st century, mushrooms are not just food for Lithuanians.

“It just came to our knowledge then. The most popular medicinal mushroom in Samogitia is the red myrtle. Another very popular mushroom is ground oil. Another mushroom, manure, is used in folk medicine to treat alcoholism. It becomes very bad. for those who have drunk alcohol and eaten manure, so after that they don’t want to look at any more vodka … And here they used sloths to lubricate the wheels, ”said J. Lubienė.

Champion – gray bear

The researcher says that of about 1,400 mushroom names, up to 95 percent. they are independent words and only 5 percent. debt. For example, from the Slavic languages ​​we have borrowed words known to all: mushroom, boletus, goat. Some of the oldest names for the natives are musk, red, ground fat.

“We should not consider the boletus or oregano as a champion of names, but rather a mushroom, scientifically called gray bear. This name has many dialect synonyms: elderberry, viburnum, blackbird, blackbird, brown, gypsy, inflorescence, ox, ox, bovine tongue, pig ears, teddy bear, teddy bear, big lip, calf’s mouth, gooseberry, gooseberry

Now, not all mushrooms recognize this fungus, and those who do not collect and eat it, many know that the gray bear accumulates radiation.

We Lithuanians are very resourceful and considerate when coming up with mushroom names. For example, the names record that mushrooms grow in forests, meadows, stumps, or manure (heather, pine mushroom, mushroom, stump, manure).

Especially often in Lithuania, mushrooms grow under deciduous trees and this is recorded by their names (oak, fir, willow, sapling, palisade). The fungi grow fast (fast fungus), they begin to germinate already in spring (dove, mayava, that is, a fungus that germinates in May, which the mountaineers called the Mayan month).

The names attest that mushrooms come in different colors (red, white, black, yellow), different shapes (crooked, plate), some with a specific taste or smell (bitter, stinky mushroom, cormorant), some may even make a sound (pumpkin) or glow in the dark (lightning night).

The mushroom naming system also shows a wise popular classification of mushrooms; after all, all those that are unfit for food go by the common name of mushrooms. From some dialect names we learn how Lithuanians prepared mushrooms for food. The lupids are kids that must be peeled, the mares are mushrooms that must be soaked to avoid bitterness, the bats are mushrooms suitable for salting, the mites are eaten strongly, that is, those that are consumed immediately after to be taken out of the forest and not prepared. for longer storage, do not dry.

And here the myrtle is so named because this poisonous mushroom used to be used in huts to kill flies. Therefore, it is possible to compile not only a picture of the mushroom kingdom from the names of the mushrooms, but also learn this about the customs and traditions of the people, “says scientist J. Lubienė.