The fat pig got its name for the similarity of a hat with a pig's ear – in some areas this mushroom is called that. However, some argue that they look more like cow ears, and call these mushrooms cowsheds. Although these gifts of the forest do not belong to the category of delicacies, their use in Russia is traditional, both in boiled and salted form.
Below are photos and descriptions of pig mushrooms, as well as information about their habitats.
Plate plate sub-leaf or velvet (thick pig)
Throughout Russia, the common people call this mushroom a pig, and in Poland a pig and a gray nest.
The velvet plate grows in all kinds of forests, mainly located on uneven terrain. The time for collecting this type of mushroom begins from the beginning of summer and continues until autumn, for the most part they are found in heaps, sometimes very large and always hidden under foliage. Pigs rarely grow under trees, and almost always in those places of the meadows, where for some reason the leaves are thicker. For the same reason, since the leaves do not fly away from young bushes, pigs often come across under them, at the very roots. Many consider the fat pig mushroom poisonous, but meanwhile the locals in the middle provinces, and, it seems, in all of Russia, although they recognize the pig more than any other mushrooms as heavy on the stomach, they eat it without harm.
The characteristic features of the velvet plate are in a cap measuring 5 to 12 cm, convex in youth, and then flat and, finally, concave, with the edges curled down.
Look at the photo of a fat pig: the color of the mushroom cap is brownish, or dark lead, or, finally, yellow-brown, which later often turns into pale yellowish, but as its surface is always soft, somewhat wet and finely covered with fluff, it has a velvety appearance . Plates of various lengths, thick, strong, whitish, and sometimes brownish, matching the color of the cap. The juice contained in them and in the pulp of the cap is white, and tastes sweet in youth, bitter in old age. The leg is 1 to 4 cm in height, sometimes attached to the side of the cap, fleshy, dense, fragile, light brown or dirty yellow, fairly thick and often hollow.
As you can see from the photo and description, pigs have a great similarity with all lamellar ones, the main difference is in the curved edges of the cap. The meat of the velvet plate is soft in appearance, inside is dry, crumbly and tough. In color, it is white in young mushrooms, and grayish in old ones. In its raw form, during the youth of the mushroom, its taste is watery-sweet, and in old age it becomes peppery. As for the smell, it is constantly retained, a weakly aromatic, coniferous.
The dryness and harshness of meat is the reason that in good kitchens this mushroom, if sometimes used, for lack of the best, then only at its earliest age. In the common people, however, it is not neglected and is often eaten in large quantities both boiled and fried in oil or lard, and in particular it is often crumbled into gruel by fasting.
Look at the photos of the fat pig mushroom and compare them with photos of other plate-makers.
