Location Taken: Arcadia, Michigan
Time Taken: May 2008
Have you ever heard of morel mushrooms?
They’re the wrinkly mushrooms that cost ten dollars or so for a small package of dried ones. It’s very rare to find them fresh, and they’re much more expensive that way.
Well, unless you happen to live in a part of the world where they grow. Then all you have to do is go out and pick them yourself.
Be careful you’re getting the real thing, though. There’s a few species of False Morel that look somewhat similar and grow in the same areas that the true morels do, and they’re somewhat poisonous. So, like all mushroom hunting, you really do need to know what you’re picking. Especially in North America, where a lot of the poisonous mushrooms look rather similar to the ones that are the tastiest.
And morels are certainly tasty. Every spring, my grandparents go on a few small mushroom hunts to get some. It takes some hunting, but they’re apparently easy to spot if you’re experienced. Mom says she can hear their little voices going “pick me, pick meee!” but it’s rare for me to be visiting my grandparents when it’s mushroom season, so I haven’t heard them yet. They certainly like blending in with the leaf litter on the ground, I’ll say that.
We package them up in mesh bags (usually the ones that used to hold the oranges my grandpa likes), and take them home. Then we lightly flour them, fry them up, and enjoy! They’ve got a marvelous taste. I’d say nutty, but so many things are called nutty (and there’s so many types of nuts) that I’m not actually sure what “nutty” tastes like. Still, they are delectable.
I’m not telling you where we find them, mind you. It’s our mushroom patch, and ours alone.
We don’t sell the morels we find (the patch is a bit too small for that), but a lot of people do. In fact, they still haven’t managed to figure out how to cultivate them yet, so the entire morel business is built upon wild mushrooms. Which is, admittedly, why they’re so expensive.
There’s a small town not too far from my grandparents called Mesick, that touts itself as the Mushroom Capital of the United States. There’s pictures of morel mushrooms all over the town, and they hold an annual Mushroom Festival. Every spring, the mushroom hunters descend upon this town, which is surrounded by excellent morel growing spots. The few times I’ve driven through the area at this time of year, there was a flock of RVs scattered around all the turn-offs on the main road, the home bases for people delving into the woods to find morels to sell.
Which is why I’m certainly not going to reveal where we get our mushrooms. It’s one of those Family Secrets things, ya know. It’s just not something you share with your neighbors, much less random strangers on the internet. Go find your own tasty mushrooms!
