Hunting for Morels
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A few years ago, Chef Jonathan Zearfoss and
I went morel hunting. It was my first guided morel hunt -- a perfect
late afternoon in early May, armed only with a knife, a bag for the
mushrooms, and a thick slathering of 100% DEET (crawling around in
the woods is, after all, a good way to become intimate with deer
ticks).
The first place we looked, at the base of
some dead Elm trees, we found three cream-colored tubular stumps.
Another morel-hunter had been there before us. This was a good sign
-- at least it meant that the morels had finally appeared. Then my
trusty guide found two blonde morels. I found nothing except an old
black walnut shell that looked remarkably like a black morel.
We went to another promising site. Nothing.
We went to another promising site. More
nothing.
We went to another promising site. Yet more
nothing.
The afternoon was winding down, and we were
beginning to lose our light, so decided to drive to one last spot
where Jonathan had heard that morels might be found.
On arrival, we noticed a woman walking
along a little wooded outcrop of lichen-covered stone, the kind of
place where Wild Columbines nodded on mossy ledges -- exactly the
kind of spot we wanted to check. What was worse, she seemed to be
walking in the halting, stooped, patient manner typical of mushroom
hunters. We waited, not wishing to intrude. While we waited, the
woman's husband appeared, carrying a bag full of mushrooms. These
people clearly knew what they were doing.
Apparently we were in the right place, but
were -- once again -- too late.
Not wishing to concede to ignominious
failure, we walked around the other side of the hill. Almost
immediately, Jonathan cried out, "They're here -- just winking at
you!"
I saw nothing.
"There's another!" he chortled.
I saw nothing.
I squatted, my face about sixteen inches
from the fragrant dead Oak leaves. In a little hole, level with the
tops of the leaves, was nothing -- or rather, something that looked
like nothing. Black morels have a sort of matte black invisibility --
especially when they have not grown enough to protrude much above the
leaf-litter. Suddenly my eye knew what to see. There were little
spots of similar nothingness all along the crumbling stone wall.
In the next few minutes, we found a couple
of dozen morels.
Whoopin' and hollerin', we took our prey
back to Jonathan's house, made necklaces of their scalps which we
wore while dancing around a Beltane bonfire, heathen flames revealing
the demonic signs that we had painted on our glistening bodies --
Well, OK, we just washed the DEET from our hands and cooked the
morels (sauteed in duck fat, with a little rabbit confit and chives)
and served them over rice (which Jonathan had used for storing some
truffles). Simple, but spectacular fare.
I saved a few for breakfast -- sweating
them in butter, then adding a bit of St. Andre to fill a couple of
omelets. My wife, Karen, was convinced that I was trying to poison
her with vile toadstools as part of some nefarious plot -- but
eventually broke down and ate them. She even admitted that she liked
them. Within minutes we were hallucinating, then became numb all
over, and an hour later we were dead -- our faces contorted into
hideous masks of suffering.
Oh, sorry -- I must have drifted into
Karen's fantasy for a moment.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most of us were told, as children, to never
-- under any circumstances -- eat any mushrooms we might find growing
in the wild. It was clearly good advice, because we are alive today
to share this article. However, in spite of what our mothers told us,
not every wild mushroom is plotting to kill us. The trick is to be
able to distinguish between those that will delight us and those that
will destroy us.
The best way to develop this ability is, as
I did, from an experienced mushroom hunter. Admittedly, not everyone
is lucky enough to know such people. Fortunately, there are
alternatives. Many excellent books and magazines can answer the
beginner's questions (and debunk dangerous myths that could kill an
inexperienced mushroom hunter).
However, the morel season is very short --
usually falling during the first two weeks of May (when Apple trees,
Columbine and Jack-in-the Pulpit are in bloom, look for morels) -- so
you'll need good information right away if you're going to safely
hunt morels this year. Here are a number of excellent websites that
will get you started:
Originally
published in The Valley
TableNumber 8 (May-June 2000)
Copyright 2002 by Gary
Allen
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