Morels: A Gift from Mother Nature
Mar 7th, 2008 | By Hank Shaw | Category: Foraging | Comments | 10 Comments |
I have quested after morel mushrooms ever since I first read Euell Gibbons’ Stalking The Wild Asparagus
Until last weekend. I was, in of all places, my front yard. Last summer Holly and I ripped out our ratty Bermuda grass-infested lawn and replaced it with wood chips, which I intend to use as a base for a series of drought-tolerant bushes such as ceanothus and manzanita. I was policing the chips, looking for weeds, when I spotted something rising from the wood: Holy Christ! It’s a morel!!
I ran to the kitchen for the scissors – you always cut, not pull, a mushroom – because I thought in my delirium that the morel might vanish unless I captured it at once. It was indeed there when I returned. Snip! I had collected my first-ever morel mushroom.
“Look Holly, it’s a gift from God!”
Holly is far more practical than I am. “More like a gift from Lowe’s.”
She’s probably right: The spores were most likely lurking in the chips, because I found another morel this afternoon (it’s the one pictured). But of all the mushroom spores that could be in a bag of wood chips, spread on all the homes in California, can it be just a coincidence that our house got morels?
I’d like to think otherwise.
What are you doing with these little miracles, Hank? Everytime we put down wood chips – usually from storm-felled trees from our land – we get mushrooms. Where were they until the wood was chipped and spread?
All in good time. Stay tuned for a day or so…
Easy now Hank. Take your time with those things. If you keep snipping them as they emerge, there’s probably a very low probability you’ll ever get a second crop. I know it’s debatable, but some of the morel hunters I’ve met swear by turning their mushrooms on end and tapping them to drop the spores inside. Others think that is a bunch of bull, but don’t sell yourself short – give ‘em a chance. You are a lucky, lucky man.
I’ve heard that – and “thankfully,” I have found two morels that are past their prime I did not mention; hopefully they will send out spores. As for the beauty pictured. I will do the “shake thing”…
I think it’s about time something came to us. Now I’d like a nice fat tom turkey to strut into our back yard. Maybe that’s greedy, though. Maybe we should settle for the neighbors’ peacocks…
We have tons of morels in Michigan. I remember hunting them in the woods next to my Grandmother’s place when I was a kid. Back then I didn’t like mushrooms, so I always turned up my nose at them.
Luckily, I got smarter as I got older.
We usually get a few morels every year popping up somewhere in the yard. Generally they like a good freeze. This year we didn’t have a freeze, never had to cover the lemon trees, and therefore no morels. For years my dad just mowed them down, until I told him they were $25 a pound. Now I have neighbors bringing over the ones they find in their yards.
I am filled with jealousy. Lowes should try to market their wood chips this way. =P
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i’ve heard about these but i dont know if i will ever have the pleasure of enjoying them in crete – i do envy you