I love morels. I love them sauteed in butter. I love them grilled. I love dried ones simmered in soup. But can I ever find them? I cannot. Well, mostly I cannot. All around me, though, people are finding them. Looky here:
From Cub Reporter Babs Young: I’m not a big morel hunter or eater, but driving down my driveway the other day I found seven of these in my flower bed. That is the first picture below of three. There were seven more, but I will spare you the pictues of these.
Then Chris Szejbach called and said the mother of all morels was growing near the red school house. I ran down right away and the last two photos are of Mother Morel. You can probably see it if you stop in for breakfast tomorrow at Sonny’s. (That’s Sonny’s hand.)
I heard from Chris, too: This is the largest mushroom I have ever seen! Weighed it at the store for proof, too.
OK, so I am going to breakfast at Sonny’s bright and early Monday morning. I think I’ll order a grilled morel steak with crispy hashbrowns on the side.
For those of you from Away, morels are the sacred wild mushrooms of the Michigan Peninsulas, celebrated in song, story, and folk festival.
- This year’s Mesick Lions Mushroom Festival, scheduled for May 7-9, was called on account of stupendously lousy weather, but the Mesick Lions are not ones to give up. They are holding the Great Do-Over on June 11-13. I am so impressed with their never-say-die spirit that I believe I’ll go over there for some pasties and some mud throwing.
- The National Morel Mushroom Festival was this weekend in Boyne City. I’m sorry not to have sent you over there earlier, but I’ve had a lot on my mind. Go to the website anyway. Those of you with decent internet service can hear The Mushroomers Waltz by Robin Lee Berry.
Torch Lake Views 
Carsten
May 17, 2010
That’s a mushroom. And L A R G E !
I have been looking for morels for years. No luck yet. So we will have to do with the Yellowfoots. They are very good dried as ‘mushroom-spice’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craterellus_tubaeformis
Gerry
May 17, 2010
I went looking at the Yellowfoots and thought they looked very attractive. They also looked like something I might confuse with something else to my disadvantage. The only wild mushrooms I have any confidence at all about being able to identify are morels. It’s probably just a lack of experience. There’s a saying I may have gotten wrong, but it goes something like, “There are old mushroom hunters and bold mushroom hunters but there are no old bold mushroom hunters.”
Carsten
May 17, 2010
They are attractive. To my best knowledge there are no similar looking mushrooms. At least not here in our part of the world. I’ll try and ask some of the people who knows for sure.
I know a little piece about mushrooms. I havent tried to translate it with English rhymes.
If you are picking in unidentified fungi in the woods.
So first let little brother taste them.
Should he die during the screeching and spasms,
Then you should let the mushrooms stand…
And if nothing happens with the little?
Well, then the portion of mushrooms was wasted.
Good hunting Gerry:-)
Gerry
May 17, 2010
Carsten! You must be the oldest child in your family! Heh heh. Me too.
Kathy
May 17, 2010
I am so envious. So very envious. Want to drive downstate right now just to find morel mushrooms. Someone said they’ve found some in Pelkie–across the bay. But don’t know anyone over there who would share their secret information. (Also am dreaming of the day when a big morel appears. There have been stories like these reported before…)
Gerry
May 17, 2010
The most amazing part of this story isn’t even that Chris and Sonny found the huge mushroom. It is that they told where they found it!
Cindy Lou
May 17, 2010
Yummo….haven’t had breakfast and now my mouth is all a-twitter with the thought of morels! Alas…will have to live vicariously through your breakfast 🙂
Gerry
May 17, 2010
You know the sad thing? I overslept and did not get over there for breakfast at all. I had cereal and milk. Bleah.
chris
May 17, 2010
Over slept? I seem to remember the last time you over slept…Hmmm
This picture really doesn’t do this mushroom justice, you still need to come see.
I don’t mind the fact we told where we found it. If you go there, please check out the BEAUTIFUL Wisteria growing into the fence too.
I wish it were at my house instead as no-one really sees it there. It should be fully in blossom in the next few days.
Gerry
May 17, 2010
I will have to go see the wisteria. Who knows, maybe I’ll stumble on a mushroom.
If I can manage to get a good sleep tonight I will definitely have breakfast over there. There’s nothing to eat at my house except smoked trout and carrots. Lunch, maybe. Breakfast, naaahh.
P.j. grath
May 17, 2010
We went to Traverse City yesterday and found a couple of urban morels while walking our dog. Actually, we found four, but two had been stepped on. None in the woods at home this year. Breakfast? That quarter of a fresh apple is wearing off, and you’re all making me hungry now!
Gerry
May 17, 2010
Ah, but now it’s time for lunch! I believe I’m going to have scrambled eggs with salsa. Yes, I am. I just checked, and my only other choice would be more cereal and milk. For someone who works at the Eastport Market I am curiously inept at keeping food in the house. Fortunately there are lots of other places a person can eat besides my house.
Anna Surface
May 17, 2010
Wow! What interesting looking mushrooms. I haven’t ever seen a morel or eaten one. Mushrooms yes, but morels? I could be mistaken, though. 🙂
Gerry
May 17, 2010
It’s hard to accidentally eat a morel, as no one has ever figured out how to cultivate them. Since they’re hard to come by, people tend to let you know they’re sharing a treasure with you!
Babs Young
May 17, 2010
I did go to Sonny’s for breakfast and Chris brought out the Mother of Morels. We measured it and it was about 9 inches long and almost 5 inches wide. I’ll have to Google for records for giant Morels.
Gerry
May 17, 2010
By the time I get over there the Mother is likely to be a wizened dried morel. Perfect for soup.
Cindy Lou
May 18, 2010
Carsten, I love the little rhyme/poem/saying…. 🙂
flandrumhill
May 20, 2010
Being from Away (I thought this was an exclusively Nova Scotia/Newfoundland expression) I have lived most of my life in the dark where morels are concerned. Thanks for enlightening me on a subject that Kathy of the UP also seems to salivate over at this time of year.
Gerry
May 20, 2010
I am fond of stealing useful expressions anywhere I find them. It is entirely possible that I adopted “from Away” from hearing it on CBC. But I think it came from spending time on islands in the Great Lakes.
Living your life in the dark where mushrooms are concerned is generally an advantage, rascal, but in the case of morels, not so much. They pop up in nice sun-dappled areas.