Morel Mushrooms

When to pick

    Black morel mushrooms in northern Michigan, usually starts slowly during the last week of April.  The best black morel hunting is the the first 2 weeks in May and Mothers Day is usually a big weekend.  So come on up and bring Mom! .  .  .  Or at least tell her where you're going.  The blacks start slowing down to almost nothing by the third week of May.  The white or yellow morels start coming on around the second week of May and last into early June. 

How To Pick a Morel

    Try to never"pull" a morel from the ground! You'll stand a chance of destroying the mycelium this way and you'll only get about 1/4 inch more of the stem anyway.  Always "CUT" it off with a small knife or shears (or pinch)!  Pinching works well with black morels.  (Pinch, cock the plant a bit, then pinch again.  Works like a charm with the early black morels.)

    Pinching DOES NOT work very well with white / yellow morels though.  They are meatier and stronger.  Best to cut these.  For the white (yellow) morel always use a "Knife or Shears".  If you pull a morel out with the roots you stand a chance of it never re-growing, as you have just disturbed the mycelium (spelling?).  Anyway that is the part of the plant system under the ground that is very delicate and easy to kill.  So please .  .  .  . "CUT"--- NOT PULL!

Mesh, Paper or Plastic Bags?

    OK.  Here is where I get into trouble no matter where I stand, but I'll give my opinion anyway.  Why not? I sure get enough e-mail about this subject.  LOL

    Use mesh bags, paper bags or a woven basket.  I don't like using plastic bags.  Why?

    Morels have a high moisture content and need to either be kept cool and moist or allowed to begin the drying process right away.  When morels are placed into plastic bags, I believe they can't breath and moisture can't escape, so they will start to break down (rot) almost immediately!  So now you know why not to use plastic for gathering mushrooms.  I have two very good friends, Bob and Ken, who will disagree with me on this.

    What about the paper bags? Paper will allow the mushroom to breath and moisture to escape.  However another theory that by using paper bags we prevent the spores from falling out as we walk and preventing new morels from growing.  So we use mesh bags or baskets to allow the spores to spread in the woods as we hunt.  I have found no definite answer as to whether or not this is true or not.  Morels grow from a web like root system underground so some people say it doesn't matter about the spores.  However I'm sure God made the spores for some reason.  What I do if I have to use paper bags for hunting is to go back to the woods and bury the spore laden bag about 3 or 4 inches deep and let nature do it's thing.  It will decompose the brown paper in less than a year and if the spores are going to grow, they will grow there as well as anywhere I assume.  I do not just throw the bags out the car window using this theory as an excuse and neither should anyone.

    What upsets me much more than seeing someone using a method of holding their mushrooms in a container I personally don't approve of, is litter in the woods.  This is much more of a problem.  Please don't throw away your beer, pop, candy wrappers etc.  in the woods.  Carry out what you carry in (or more).  Don't be lazy about it.

Where Do Morels Grow? - How To Find Them

    Explaining where morels grow in Michigan and how to find them, is difficult. 
There is no hard and fast rules here either.  They grow where and
when they want to.  I've read and heard that areas with a lot
of snow and rich sandy soils are good for morels.  That type
of combination seems to work here in northern Mich.

    Black morel habitats includes Ash, Fruit and Aspen
trees (also known as: Popple or Poplar) or even lawns
and fields.  The white (yellow) morels especially like
Elm, Fruit trees, and Maple.  And south of Michigan,
the Tulip Poplar tree is a good host.  It sounds like
you could expect to find morels growing just about
everywhere.  But that's not always the case.

    That's why we call it "Hunting".
You just have to get out there and keep hunting
until you find one.  When you have found the first one,
you'll find others.  And once you've found a few, you'll start
to notice where, when and how.  After that seeps into our fungi shaped brains,
it becomes easier to locate this gourmet treat.  When this occurs, you are hooked for life!

    I know you must be a little exasperated by now in your quest to find information on these little buggers.  When I first started searching the Internet a few years ago for information it seemed like nobody wanted to give the "real" information out on how to find them.  Now it seems there are a ton of mushroom sites on the web.  So I understand how you feel.  It drove me crazy too for awhile.  I've only recently begun to find whites (yellow) (other than the occasional ones).  I looked where people said to look, .  .  .  but for me they are just weren't there.  Then I started learning to "identify the different trees".  Take it from me, this is all important when scouting a new area to hunt.  Learn your trees.  It's the closest thing to a guarantee you'll ever get, and it sure increases your chances of finding morels, or any other mushrooms.  [ See: The White Morel Hunt ]

Climate & Conditions

    In Northern Michigan the right combination of melting snow and rain will produce a "Jim Dandy" crop of morels.  Ground moisture in the spring is critical for morels.  Snow and springs rains are very important.  Too little or too much can cause a bad year.  I've never seen too much yet though.  There is a difference between well watered and saturated soil though.  Morels seldom grow where the ground is soggy.  They like it better well drained, but moist.  Forest fires sites of one or two years ago, old apple, or other fruit, orchards seem to be good spots too.  I've read, that apple pulp from cider mills spread around, will help your chances of growing them in your back yard! Haven't tried that yet.

Preserving and Storing Morels

DRYING MORELS
    While wild morels are best used fresh, preserving your bounty is easily done also.  Drying morels is one of the most popular (and I think the best) method of preserving.  Some cook and then freeze them also.  The taste and texture seems to remain more true to the fresh morel flavor when dried in my opinion. 

    The easiest way is with a food dehydrator if you have one.  I don't have one yet.  So I try to sun and air dry them if possible first. We just put them on a non-metal screen and set in the sun, or if need be, in the house with a fan running over them. 

If that's not possible then I place them on a screen (preferred) or cookie sheet lined with paper towels.  Put them in the oven with the door left cracked open about 4 inches.  This lets the moisture escape.  If you have a gas oven, the pilot light is usually enough heat.  I have an electric oven, so I set it to maintain a temperature of 90 to 100 degrees for ten to twenty four hours, depending on moisture content, size and amount of morels.  Use a 'good thermometer' and make sure you never go above 100 degrees!      Exception: After they are dried, I increase the heat to stay between 110 & 115 degrees and no more, for another hour or two.  This gets rid of the last bit of moisture from them, and increases shelf life.

    If you go too high with the heat and you will partially cook them and they will not re-hydrate to former size and will not have the same taste or texture.  Trust me.  I 'Really' dried some when I first started out! I dried them rock hard in 2 or 3 hours at about 250 degrees.  Turned out tough and tasted like tires.  Lesson learned.

    You want them thoroughly dried but still with just the tiniest bit of give when you gently squeeze them.  You can cut your drying time and storage space by half or more, by slicing them length-ways before drying.  It allows the moisture to escape much faster.  I like drying black morels whole, just because I like to stare at them all winter long and dream of spring.  They are So-o-o-o pretty! ~~ sheepish grin ~~

    It take between 8 to 10 lb.  fresh morels = 1 lb.  of dried morels.  Up to a 10 to 1 ratio.  Hence the high prices of $120.00 or more, for one lb.  of Dried Morels, which will last most folks almost a year.  So it's not really that high of a price.  ($10.00 a month for heaven!)

STORING MORELS
    I have been storing my dried morels in jars up to four years now.  I've read that dried morels should be stored in paper bags and not jars, so they can breath.  (One lady e-mail me saying that she had found a paper bag full of them that she had forgot about for several years.  She cooked them up, and said they were just as good as fresh!) So these past seasons I tried three different ways to see what happens. 

PAPER BAGS
    I've had some in paper bags since last season (May of 2000), and I just finished them (2 years later) in Jan 2002.  They were still just fine.  I just had a 25-morel egg omelet with them today.  Mmmmm!
(And let me tell you, it is durned hard to scramble those tiny morel eggs!)

By-the-way, this is the end of my paper bag test.  I screwed up and ate all that was left in the bag.  I forgot that I was trying to see how long they would keep.  So about one year and eight months for the bag test before it ran out.  Not bad.  Surprised me.  I thought when I started this test that I was going to waste some morels, but I never lost a single one!

IN JARS
    I just dried and placed the morels in quart jars.  This is how I have done it that way for several years.  I have kept them up to five years so far, this way, and they are still good.

VACUUM SEALED in both jars and vacuum bags
    I dried and vacuum packed some last year (2000) with the Foodsaver II, in both wide mouth jars and in the bags that comes with the saver.  Both ways seem to be doing well after more than three years of storing.  I believe drying and vacuum sealing is going to be the ultimate method for me.

    Some folks string them too, with a needle and thread and hang them to dry, and use as needed.  This method seems very time consuming if you have a lot of them, but it does work.

HOW DO I KNOW THEY ARE GOOD OR BAD?
    To begin with, always make sure your morels are healthy before drying and storing.  One 'bad' morel stored with all your good ones, can cause spoilage.  After storing them dried, if they look like they have yellow or whitish dust, or tiny spider-web-like strands on them.  Throw them out.  That's mold.  If they have any dark soft spots.  Throw them out also.  They are starting to rot. They should look EXACTLY the same as when you first dried them with NO BLEMISHES.

Cooking & Safety Tips

Caution!
See Identification
Make sure your mushrooms are safe to eat.  If you are not experienced, hunt with someone who is or have them check your mushrooms for you.

    DO NOT eat any wild mushroom without properly cooking them first.  Regardless of how you use any wild mushrooms, remember cooking is a must [usually 8 to 10 minutes].  Cooking destroys most of the irritants that causes reactions in most people, but not all.  You should not consume alcohol with large amounts of wild mushrooms either.  The alcohol will increase the severity of a reaction should you have one.  Occasionally some people, though few, may have a slight reaction even without drinking any alcohol.  You should not eat them in too large amounts, until you know how you react to them.  ( My reaction has always been to ask for more! :)

    Small kids and elderly people are the most likely to have a reaction.  To test your reaction, you should cook 2 or 3 and eat only a few bites of a mushroom.  Wait two hours and try a few more bites.  If still no reaction, try tomorrow with maybe 5 or 6 morels.  Still no reaction......? Go ahead and enjoy.  :)

NOTE:
    If you don't want to test them as above.  .  .  .  you can always try to get your spouse, brother or niece to try them for you.  I don't recommend this method.  They'll break your heart when they utter awful things such as "Yuck! It's like chewing a tire." - or - "Oh God, Uncle Frank, These things are HORRIBLE!" No, I don't know why .......  I guess God didn't give everybody functional taste buds as advanced as ours.  How can they NOT like morel mushrooms? If you have an answer to that, let me know.  * LOL *

    My sister-in-law,Annette, pointed out; "If you eat a sizable quantity of any wild mushrooms and have any dizziness, cramping or upset stomach, you should have someone drive you to the hospital and ask for a stomach pump in your size."  Good advice Annette.  It really is best to hunt with a person that knows about wild mushrooms and how to identify them in the field.
There, I've done my duty! .......Come on, don't be afraid....let's go hunting!

My Favorite Recipes:

Recipe #1 - Sautéed in a pan of steak drippings and butter on medium high heat.  Add the spices or herbs you like, but don't salt the mushrooms until they are ready to come out of the pan.  Salting while cooking will make them tough by removing moisture from them.  Cook about 3 or 4 minutes on each side, or 6 to 8 minutes if they are whole, stirring often.

Recipe #2 - Just Sauté them as above, without the drippings, in just butter or flavored olive oil, garlic & oregano.  Salt and pepper at end of cooking. 

Recipe #3 - Sauté about 30 of them in butter with oregano, minced-garlic, chopped-wild leeks/onions and chopped green peppers.  Add pepper and salt at the end of cooking.  Remove them from pan.  Start a 3 egg omelet and stir in the mushrooms just as the eggs begin to congeal.  Finish cooking your omelet and enjoy with homemade toast.  Mmmmm!

The black morel is my favorite fungi to eat.  I don't use batter or dredge in any dry flour mixture.  They get too crispy that way for my taste.  Morels are as popular here as Truffles in other countries.  Whites just don't have the same woodsy flavor, tho' they DO stand up better in cooking.  (Maybe I'll change my mind when I start finding more whites.  Eh?) Getting hungry? See links for more recipes.

My Favorite Morel Book

    A Morel Hunter's Companion by Nancy Smith Weber.  A Guide to the True and False Morels.  More than a mere morel hunter's guide.  It also contains chapters on cooking and preserving morels, morel classification, cultivation of morels, and the relationship between weather and morel mushrooms.  Refers to & cites an extensive list of publications on morels and related mushrooms.  208 pages.  70 great COLOR PLATES; tables: glossary; index.  $19.95.
Well worth the price!
I highly recommend this book to everyone!
It used to be available at gas stations in Gaylord, Michigan, as well as many book stores. But it is now out of print. Their is a new revised edition in the works, but I've no idea when it will be out. So until then try finding a used one on ebay. 

Secret Spot
Pssst...  Want to know of a spot on State Land, where you can pick a bushel in 3 - 4 hours!
Hardly anybody goes there.  There are so many that we can't use them all.
So I thought I would share with those who view this page.
Click the Red Button to get the exact location,
and promise not to tell.