Morels the Fungus Among Us! By Gary Howey
Well, I do believe its spring, temperatures are warming up, the snow geese have moved through and the turkeys are strutting.
It’s also that time of the year when an infectious disease attacks avid outdoorsmen and women that live throughout the upper Midwest.
It can infect men, women, children and it doesn’t make any difference if you’re young or old!
What causes this infectious disease is a fungi that’s will soon be among us, it’s the morel mushroom and once they start poking their heads out of the ground, men and women will leave their home, family and job heading for the river bottoms, island and hills on mushroom hunting excursions.
Morels are found throughout the upper Midwest, are easy to recognize and delicious, making them the most sought after wild mushroom.
Identifying them from other mushrooms is easy. Morels are elongated with an off white stem and a crown that is made up of white with dark brown pits or indentations.
They vary from off-white to gray in color. The simplest way to explain what a morel looks like is to look for a mushroom growing on the ground that resembles a cone shaped brain.
They start to appear in the spring when temperatures reach around 50-60 degrees.
When’s the best time to start looking for morels? Well, according to some of those experienced old timers, you’re just wasting your time hunting mushroom until the oak leaves are the size of a mouse or squirrel’s ear.
Honestly, I’ve never known anyone who’s measured a squirrel or mouse ear, but I’ve been told that they are about half the size of your smallest fingernail.
There are several indicators that tell you it’s time to head out and start looking for morels.
If you have a lilac bush in the neighborhood, keep an eye on it and when it starts to bloom, it’s a good sign that the morels will be out.
You’ll also want to watch the crab apple trees as about the time, they start to bloom which is generally the week of Mother’s Day as this is when the morels should be the thickest.
The best tasting fungus of them all By Larry Myhre
Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal
I’ll never forget stumbling into mushroom heaven.
It was nearly 40 years ago. I was hiking into a farm pond on a friend’s land in the Loess Hills southeast of town.
Suddenly on the forest floor I saw morel mushrooms, hundreds of them.
My eyes swept the area and I changed the hundreds estimate to thousands.
Fishing was forgotten. I went home and grabbed some paper grocery sacks and returned.
I filled them and that afternoon all of my friends had more morels than they could eat at one sitting.
I hunt morels every year, but I have never seen anything like that since.
Last year was very good for morels. Hopefully the same can be said for the spring of 2009.
It won’t be long, maybe a couple of weeks and morel lovers all across Siouxland will be stalking the woods looking for this tasty fungus.
The morels come out on the Missouri River bottom flats first in our area. A couple weeks later they begin emerging in the hills.
How to find them?
Good question. Some folks say look around dead elms or ash trees. But they will be where you find them, usually around dead or dying trees, but not always.
Most mushroom hunters carry mesh bags in which to place their morels. This allows spores to escape to the ground ensuring next year’s crop.
You’ll find two different colors, greys and yellows. Some folks say one tastes better than the other.… Continue reading