Always proceed with extreme suspicion when collecting mushrooms you plan to consume – your best strategy is to consult an expert, if you know one. Lacking that, make absolutely sure to carefully identify any mushroom you plan to consume, and most importantly, once you decide to consume them, be wise and prepare them only in small amounts (and temporarily save a portion of the trimmed off pieces just in case). Over-consuming mushrooms – even “safe” mushrooms – can lead to gastrointestinal distress, sometimes severe. Be smart about it and go slowly!
Morel mushrooms (Morchella sp) are endemic to most of the continental United States, including woodlands in South Carolina. The fungus is thought to form micorrhyzal associations with fine nonwoody tree roots, and forms fruiting bodies (mushrooms) in early spring.
My wife grew up in Michigan and learned to forage for morel mushrooms with her family in the spring. Morels are one of the easiest mushrooms to identify because there are very few species that you can confuse them with, especially once you have seen or found a few on your own. They are also extraordinarily tasty, and well worth the effort to seek out. If you’ve ever tasted morels, you don’t need convincing. If you haven’t, you owe it to yourself to try them!
Generally, morel mushrooms begin to appear when daytime temperatures flirt with the 60s and 70s for a week or so, and nighttime temperatures are in the 50s, especially when there is generous soil moisture. The season is short-lived, lasting only 2-3 weeks or so. It can be much shorter during droughts, and longer under ideal climatic conditions. It can also start early during unseasonably warm conditions and later during unseasonably cold conditions. So there’s not much of a hard and fast rule about this brief season except that if you don’t seek them out, you’ll never find any. Often the morel season overlaps with hunting season for wild turkeys in SC.
The first time I ever saw a real morel mushroom, a turkey hunter had dropped off a gallon ziplock bag of them at the office where Gwen worked and she enthusiastically brought some home. We had foraged a little in Union County with little success, but after that experience we began to look with a lot more persistence. Ironically, the best morel-producing place we found was within 300 yards of our house in Union, in the floodplain of a creek. From my experience since, woodland creeks and floodplains are a good bet for conditions that support morel mushroom formation.
One of the benefits of foraging in the woods in early spring is that you can see a lot of really cool, unexpected natural and unnatural displays. Myriad species of wildflowers are blooming, fiddleheads (new ferns) are pushing up, and signs of new life are everywhere you look. I’ve discovered interesting animal tracks in the mud beside a creek, unknown (to me) animal bones or scat or even owl pellets underneath roost trees. I’ve found unexpected signs of human activity out in the woods also, including abandoned buildings and unopened adult beverages cooling in a creek . . .
One of the neat things about morel foraging is that it forces you to slow down and actively observe your immediate surroundings. Morels are so well-camouflaged that you can easily pass them by, sometimes even when you are looking right at them.
So here is how I roll when heading out for a morel foray: pull on some junk jeans and your junk shoes, grab a small plastic baggie and your water bottle, let someone know where you’re going and how long you expect to be (better yet, take them with you), and most importantly, take along all the patience you can muster. Also, take the normal necessary precautions regarding ticks (insect repellent with Deet applied to outside of clothing, long sleeves, socks pulled over jeans, check your body for ticks upon your return). When you get to the woods, especially when you get close to the creek or floodplain where you plan to search, slow down. Morels are really difficult to spot, especially until you find that first one and get your eyeballs dialed in.
Every morel hunter has 1) favorite tree species to search out, since it is thought that morels are a micorrhysal fungus on tree root systems, and 2) favorite “indicator species” that help you recognize potential morel-producing conditions. My personal favorite tree species are tulip poplar and boxelder (a maple species) – I have found morels at the base of both of these tree species. Other folks like elm trees, and I’ve always heard old apple trees are reliable. While apple isn’t a floodplain species, if you read much about morels you know apple trees are a common preference, and morels certainly aren’t restricted to floodplains – that is just where I’ve had success in SC. The indicator species I personally look for in a potential morel producing spot include May apples nearby, painted buckeye blooming, and fiddleheads emerging.
When you’re in a spot you think has potential, stop. You have to try to observe the forest floor in a manner where you take in as much detail as possible. Look at individual sweetgum balls, twigs, leaves, tulip poplar and maple samaras. Survey your surroundings slowly and systematically. I find it helps me to squat on my haunches or kneel to get my eyes closer to ground level, so that it is easier to pick up the vertical aspect of anything vertical poking up out of the forest floor – a slight advantage in helping defeat the mushroom’s incredible camouflage. Another way to do this, if the creek is nearby, is to get down into the creek bed so your eyes are roughly at ground level, and search the banks and floodplain, looking for anything poking up. Sooner or later your eyes will come across that iconic netted pointy cap on a stem (like a little Christmas tree), and you’ll have to metabolize a bunch of adrenaline as you realize that you’ve found one. More often than not, as soon you find one you will see several others become glaringly obvious. Before you move, remain calm and mentally mark their locations very carefully, because as soon as you move to harvest one, you can easily lose the position of the others you saw! Finally, when you pick one, note that both the stem and the cap of are completely hollow – this is an identifying characteristic.
I think the best way to prepare morels is very simple – use real butter and sauté them gently. Their flavor is unsurpassed. And honestly, don’t prepare a large amount of morels, it’s always wise to proceed with moderation. They should leave you wanting more, not wishing you hadn’t!
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