Hunting the Wild Morel
May 11th, 2009 · 5 Comments · Posted in Blog
The elusive morel mushroom
Our artist friend Bob loves to talk ab0ut hunting morel mushrooms near his cabin in the Shenandoah hills of Virginia. It’s not just talk. He’s been known to show up for dinner with a big bag of morels, so we know there is a good deal of fact behind his morel stories. We always hoped we might one day get a chance to accompany Bob on one of his morel excursions. Our number came up this weekend.
After a 90-minute drive into the country, we arrived at Bob’s cabin and prepared for the hunt. Mostly this involved an application of bug spray on our pants legs to ward off chiggers and ticks. Bob also distributed decorative walking sticks–not so much for supporting ourselves as for moving any brush or debris that might obscure our view of the morels.
Morels make their appearance in the woodlands in spring. According to Bob, they especially like the north-facing down slopes of woodsy areas. Sometimes he will spend hours on the prowl. In our case, it took about one hour to find our quarry, the outlines of which are just barely visible–somewhat like Big Foot himself–in the grainy photo above.
The waters of Cedar Run are quite cold this time of year
Hunting morels is exhausting work. At a certain point, Bob needed to cool off. Fortunately, the cool (make that bracing cold) waters of Cedar Run are close by. It takes a real man to jump into the creek this time of year. I would have, but I had to guard Bob’s clothes.
Kids make like otters
The kids couldn’t bare to let Bob have all the fun. They pulled on swimsuits and made like otters, sliding down the muddy bank into the creek. Getting back up again is a little trickier.
The search party
Then the hunt resumed. From the woods, into meadows, along roadsides. You can tell these people are searching for mushrooms. They are looking down.
Flowers peep from the forest floor
Despite a tireless search, we are unable to find any more morels. We do, however, see many lovely wildflowers.
At home in the woods
And there is wildlife to admire. And chase. And try to grab.
Playing on the swing more fun than hunting mushrooms?
Finally, though, we call off the search and return to the cabin, where certain members of the hunting party decide it’s more fun playing on Bob’s swing. The rope is looped over the branch of a hickory tree high overhead, which makes the swing quite a thrill ride. You mount it at the top of a hillside. As you swing out, you find the ground falling away about 20 feet below. This is definitely not for squeamish adults.
Bob puts on a hearty meal of burgers made from local lamb, grilled sweet potatoes, and the Swiss chard we harvested in our garden that morning, simply braised and dressed with some Balsamic vinegar.
Bob decides that probably we are too late in the season for morels. Either that, or the local wild turkeys have eaten them all. I suggest we find one of those turkeys and cook it. Bob suggests we just come back a little earlier next year. We’ve marked our calendar.
May 11th is a little late for hunting morels in Virginia. Once the May Apples are fully up it’s all over. We had a pretty good hunt this year and even got enough to dry for recipes later on. We’re pretty lucky, though, in that we unknowingly built our cabin right next to a good hunting area right on our own land, so we’ve pretty much eliminated the competition for the spot 🙂
Most of my neighbors like to batter and fry their morels, but I think that covers up too much of their taste. We usually just gently saute them, or use them in pastas, etc.
Skylark, the may apples were definitely up, so most likely the season was passed. The morel we did find was pretty long in the tooth. You are lucky to have such an abundance on your own property, you don’t have to hike all over creation. Do the wild turkeys eat yours, too?
Our wild turkey population is just building back up. In the 9 years we’ve been here we’ve heard them occasionally, but never saw them. This year driving down the driveway (1/2 mile) we had to stop the car and let 32 of them cross in front of us. What a delight. So, I don’t mind sharing some of my morels with them for the time being. We can only eat so much anyway, and a future turkey dinner sounds good, too.
It’s a little late indeed for morels in our area (Northern Virginia Piedmont). But it also was not a good year for them: dry winter, and very few nights in the 40’s in April. We went from nights in the 30’s to night’s in the 50’s. And then hot and rain. Last year was a fabulous year, though… maybe chanterelles, another favorite wild mushroom, this summer?
Skylark, I’d like to have seen that big flock of wild turkeys crossing the road. We’ve also seen them by the roadside. The wildlife is finding a way to proliferate in spite of us humans–and lots of it is edible.
Sylvie, I will pass that info on to Bob. I know nothing about what morels like by way of weather. If they’re as tempermental as my spinach, I’m not surprised we didn’t find any. Chanterelles–sounds like a plan.