Today we are going to talk about a type of mushroom that is not edible in principle due to its flavor but is frequently collected. Its about Peppered milk. It is known by the common name of Lactario spicy or Lactario pimentero. This common name is due to its famous flavor.
In this article we are going to tell you all the characteristics, possible confusion and how to collect the Lactarius piperatus.
Key features
He has a hat of an appreciable size. It is usually of a size between 5 and 20 centimeters in diameter. Like the vast majority of Lactarius, they first have a hat that is convex and depressed, although it evolves into a funnel. As it develops, the hat acquires this funnel shape. Its cuticle is white and cream with some shades and spots in oxidized ocher. These stains appear mainly in areas damaged both by friction and by differences in temperature.
This is a hat that is quite difficult to separate from the meat and has a dry, satiny and slightly rough appearance in adulthood. The margins are rolled up although only when young. When the Lactarius piperatus develops and evolves to the adult stage, the margin of the hat evolves into an irregularly sinuous flat shape.
They have fairly narrow adnate blades with a creamy white color and slightly decurrent with age. They are sheets that are tight to each other and that continuously secrete a white latex when it is damaged. This may be one of the keys to be able to identify and separate the Peppered milk of another species of its genus. It has a whole and colored edge.
With regard to the foot we will say that it is shaped like a cylindrical solid and is hard. It is narrower at its base and somewhat brittle. Normally measures approximately between 4 and 8 centimeters in length and between 1.5 and 3 centimeters in diameter. It can be recognized with the naked eye because the foot is whitish in color similar to that of the hat. It also has the same small rust-colored spots that only damaged areas have.
Lastly, the meat has a white color and turns smoothly to a creamy or yellow-green color.
Ecology and habitat Peppered milk
We are talking about a mushroom that appears during the summer and early fall. It is usually found more frequently and abundantly in riparian forests and in plains, oak and beech forests. It mainly bears fruit in groups and sometimes quite numerous. For this reason, it is somewhat rarer to find isolated specimens of the Lactarius piperatus.
The abundance of these specimens depends on the rainfall that has occurred last spring. These forests maintain a high level of humidity and tend to develop on stumps and their bases. You can also find them mixed with other mushrooms that tend to have a similar habitat.
It is a species that can sometimes be found during the spring if it has had a lot of rainfall. In addition, you can extend your stay until the beginning of autumn since it is considered a thermophilic species that grows under the flat trees. A thermophilic species means that it prefers high temperatures. Therefore, if the rainfall during the spring has been high and the temperatures also in summer, you can extend your stay until the beginning of autumn and, if the weather allows it, even longer.
As for its edibility, it is tremendously spicy. The common name of Lactario spicy refers to its flavor. They are spicy which, in principle, is not edible. There are some eastern countries that, like other similar species, are made to go through an elaboration process in which condiments are used to serve as chilli peppers. In this way they can take advantage of the spicy flavor of this mushroom to add some spicy flavor to their meals.
It is not an edible mushroom due to its quite spicy taste when raw. After making it, even though it loses a lot of spiciness, it still tastes bad.
Possible confusions of the Peppered milk
As we have mentioned before, the Peppered milk it is not an edible mushroom due to its high level of spiciness. Unless it has a good treatment to serve as a condiment, we cannot collect mushrooms and eat them since we would have a stomach problem.
It is often confused with other white Lactarius such as the Lactarius vellereus, having the velvety cuticle, lamellae and unchanging color latex and these lamellae are further apart. We must learn to separate one species from another based on the difference in their characteristics. As we mentioned almost at the beginning of the article, the spots that appear on the hat in the damaged parts can serve as a difference to separate one species from another. It is important not to confuse the spicy Lactarius since we can ingest it when we should not.
Another possible confusion is with the Lactarius controversialus. This species has a slightly more zoned cuticle in pink tones. Its plates are pink in color and the latex has an unchanging white color. These are small differences that must be taken into account to separate these species of mushrooms.
They also quite resemble the russula delica. This species differs mainly from the Peppered milk in that it does not have latex. It has so much resemblance that it is almost identical to the species of Lactarius pergamenus. This species begins to bear fruit a little later and the latex, unlike the Peppered milk, turns an olive green color to dry on the sheets. This latex can also be differentiated as it reacts with potash strongly. This is not the spicy Lactario latex.
Without a doubt we can say that the most significant characteristic to be able to determine this species is how tight the lamellae are. What's more, these lamellae have a very limited surface area. For the most experienced experts in this subject, they mainly differentiate this species through the observation of the tight lamellae and the color of the latex, from white it can turn yellow or greenish as a result of oxidation.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about the Peppered milk and possible confusion with other mushrooms.