Hunting Morels
Spring is the season for gathering wild mushrooms. Here's how to find them…and cook them. This story—with more recipes—appears in our March/April 2004 issue.
By Michael P. Gutzmer
Morels gathered near the junction of the Loup and Platte rivers, near Columbus.
Photo by Todd Stepanek.
Lewis and Clark may not have realized it when they camped along the Missouri River 200 years ago, but the forest floor was covered with tasty food ripe for the picking. Centuries before Europeans arrived, Native Americans were enjoying the nutty, meaty flavor of morel mushrooms.
Today, North America has an estimated 10 million mushroom hunters. Mushrooms are found from the tropics to north of the Arctic Circle. In Nebraska, the morel — a brown, sponge-shaped mushroom — is a plentiful treat for those who know where to look, and what to look for.
My wife, Melanie, and I are both children of avid mushroom hunters. For our own family, mushroom hunting has been an annual springtime adventure for eight years. Our twin daughters started when they were five; our two sons began hunting morels as soon as they were old enough to walk. The kids compare it to an Easter egg hunt in the deep woods.
Last spring, Melanie's parents came from Ravenna to join us for a day of morel hunting on the Loup River bottoms near Columbus. Walt Rager, Melanie's father, has been hunting morels since the early 1930s. Like any good morel hunter, Rager will tell you what he knows about art of finding morels, but won't reveal his favorite spots for finding them.
Morels can be found anywhere, but are much more plentiful in wooded floodplains where there is adequate moisture and organic matter such as decaying trees. The amount of moisture makes a big difference. “One spring we had lots of moisture and found some mushrooms as big as fruit jars,” Rager said. A retired railroader, in wet years he's even found morels growing along railroad right-of-ways.
Morels are found along every major river and tributary across the state. Most years, they appear late in April and last through Mothers Day in May. They are usually the size of a golf ball, but can vary in size and color. According to mushroom expert Larry Lonik, black morels appear in 60-degree weather, white morels at 70 degrees and giant morels at 80 degrees.
Walking along the Loup River, we found ourselves in an area with lots of fallen timber and ample organic matter such as leaf litter, twigs and decaying bark. It wasn't long before our four children were yelling that they had found one. Soon they found several more. Grandpa Rager, meanwhile, quietly bent over again and again, putting one morel after another into his mesh bag. He has learned to walk slowly, looking carefully in all directions, to better see the elusive fungus that blends so well with the forest floor. In less than an hour we filled our mesh bag with several pounds of morels.
A morel looks like a sponge on a stalk. In this part of the country, nothing else really looks like them. It takes practice to develop an eye for spotting morels on a cluttered forest floor. Dave Ebner of Columbus, the kids' uncle, has been hunting morels since he was in college. “You can walk right by them,” he said, “and the person behind you spots them right away!” In general, where you find one, you'll probably find several. Often they'll be hidden under fallen leaves or pieces of bark, or obscured by vegetation. Sometimes morels grow in large groups.
In order to keep morels abundant, hunters should gather them in a mesh bag. This helps spread the tiny seeds or “spores.” Morels reproduce by spreading spores, and the cap of a single morel contains as many as half a million of them. It takes five years for a spore to develop into a mature morel.
Because morels are mostly found in the woods, hunters should wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts and be prepared to remove a few ticks upon arriving home. Because so much prime morel habitat is on private property, it's necessary to get permission to enter many of the hot spots. Morels are usually found in the same locations from year to year.
When preparing morels for cooking, it's best to cut them lengthwise into halves for soaking. Cutting them aids in cleaning the grit and tiny mites and amphipods that find refuge in the convoluted ridges of the morel. It also provides confirmation that it is indeed a morel — a morel is always hollow from the cap (the spongy part) through the stem.
To soak, add one teaspoon of salt per quart of water. Use enough salted water to completely cover the mushrooms. If you need to limit your salt intake, you can use one teaspoon of vinegar per quart of water instead of salt. After soaking a few hours or overnight, pat the mushrooms with a paper towel. They are ready to cook.
Clean morels can be refrigerated when covered, and can last safely for a week. Packed in freezer bags, they can last a year in the freezer. (They never seem to last that long in our house!) They can also be dried in the oven at 150 to 200 degrees, then stored in bags in a refrigerator or freezer. To prepare dried morels for cooking, soak them in water about 20 minutes.
Along the Loup River, fragrant with blooming violets, our walk in the woods gave grandpa and grandma a chance to talk about the good ole days, and for the kids to tell their grandparents about what they were learning in school. The kids were also able to burn off some of that infinite supply of energy that youth are so blessed with.
For me, it was a chance to think about my own father, gone now for 25 years, who used to take me to the woods to hunt for mushrooms. I thought about our times together and how it influenced my career as a biologist and environmental scientist. I thought about conservation and wise land management, so critical to the long-term enjoyment of outdoor recreation such as mushroom hunting. I thought about my children and their children, and hoped they would experience a bonding with the land as I had, a bonding with nature and with their families.
About the author — Michael Gutzmer lives in Columbus.
Morels and Eggs
1 pound of morels, cleaned and halved
One quarter finely diced small onion
Butter
1 dozen eggs beaten with a half a cup of milk added
A pinch of parsley
Salt and pepper (jalapeño slices can be added for pepper lovers)
Sauté morels and diced onions in a buttered pan for five to 10 minutes. Add beaten egg mixture over the mushrooms and cook to desired consistency. Serve alone or in flour or corn tortillas with a tomato salsa sauce.