Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Wild Food guide to Coconut Milk Cap along with all the Coconut Milk Cap containing recipes presented on this site, with 0 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Coconut Milk Cap as a major wild food ingredient.

Lactarius glyciosmus is typically coloured a greyish lilac, with the sometimes hollow stem a little lighter coloured than the cap. It has crowded, decurrent gills, and smells strongly of coconuts.

Lactarius glyciosmus is a small to medium-sized agaric,[2] which typically has a convex cap measuring between 2 and 5.5 centimetres, with a small central depression developing with age. Sometimes there is a central pimple, and the cap is typically coloured a greyish lilac, sometimes varying to a pale buff. It is thin fleshed, with an incurved margin in younger specimens. The stem measures between 25 and 65 millimetres in height, with a width between 4 and 12 millimetres. The cylindrical stem is typically widest at the bottom becoming narrower towards the top, or sometimes club shaped. The stem is concolorous with the cap, but sometimes is a little paler or with a yellowish hue. The stem is particularly soft and easily broken, and can become hollow. The flesh is buff. The gills are decurrent and crowded, and vary in colour from a pale yellowish to a pale flesh, turning to a greyish lilac with age. The milk is white with an initially mild, later hot and acrid taste.[3] The mushroom has a strong smell of coconuts.

It is similar to L. vietus, the grey milk cap, but is differentiated by the fact L. vietus milk dries grey, while L. glyciosmus milk dries white.[4] It can also be confused with L. cocosiolens, which also smells of coconuts, but L. cocosiolens has a slimy brown or orange cap and is not found among birch.

Different compounds, including several sesquiterpenes, have been isolated from L. glyciosmus.

Lactarius glyciosmus is considered edible, but is not generally sought out. These fragile little grey-capped mushrooms that exude a white latex when damaged are fairly common under birch trees in the autumn. One sniff of the gills or broken flesh will, by way of a strong and distinct coconut aroma, confirm the identification. They are excellent lightly cooked in Thai dishes. Unfortunately most of the aroma is lost on drying, so they need to be used fresh.

It's really their coconut scent/flavour that makes them useful. Indeed, they can be added, sparingly, to a wild food curry to yield a coconut-like flavour.

References:

[1]. David Evans Notes from field observations, tastings and cookery experiments.
[2]. Huxley, A. The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1992
[3]. Tanaka, T. Tanaka's Cyclopaedia of Edible Plants of the World.
[4]. Lim T.K. Edible Medicinal And Non-Medicinal Plants, Vols 1–8.
[5]. Thomas, G. S. Perennial Garden Plants
[6]. Milner, E. Trees of Britain and Ireland
[7]. Rose, F. & O'Reilly, C. The Wild Flower Key (Revised Edition) – How to identify wild plants, trees and shrubs in Britain and Ireland
[8]. Streeter, D. & Garrard, I. The Wild Flowers of the British Isles
[9]. Clapham, A.R.; Tutin, T.G. & Moore, D.M. Flora of the British Isles
[10]. Phillips, R. Mushrooms
[10]. Phillips, R. Mushrooms
[11]. Jordan, P. & Wheeler, S. The Complete Book of Mushrooms: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Edible Mushrooms
[12]. Bunker, F.; Brodie, J.A.; Maggs, C.A. & Bunker, A. Seaweeds of Britain and Ireland.
[13]. Facciola, S. Cornucopia — A Source Book of Edible Plants