Russulae (English russulas, German Täublinge) are among the most common mushrooms in the temperate climate zone and nothing special at all in every respect you could imagine.
Most of them are edible but they aren't delicious. Some even are poisonous but not dangerously so. And even if you accidentally take a poisonous one, the mushroom dish will taste so hot that you wouldn't be able to eat enough of it to cause any serious health problems. You even could mix them up with some rare doppelgangers but only if you don't know the first thing about russulas. And last but not least they aren't particularly beautiful - but neither they're ugly.
As a result it shouldn't come as a big surprise that at least in Austria you won't find a restaurant that serves russulas, and that there aren't any russulas in childrens books as far as I know, you'll find only toadstools and boletes there: the delicacy and the poisonous one, archetypical opposites.
Not very much has been done in the last years to support russula emancipation, and I think it's high time to change that. Look at this fine specimen of Russula xerampelina:
Ain't she a beauty?
She's not worthy less than all the other, more popular mushrooms. I had a dream - of russulas being served in the same restaurants as boletes and chanterelles. One day it even might come true!
