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I first heard about morel mushrooms on Facebook a about a year or so ago. I kept seeing friends post their finds on Facebook and thought it was interesting that they were hunting for mushrooms but never thought much more about them.
Then this year, my sister decided that she wanted to hunt for morel mushrooms after finding a few in my dad’s yard last spring. Of course, I had to try my hand at hunting these famous morel mushrooms and therefore led to my first morel mushroom hunting experience.
I’m Not an Expert.
Before I get started, I want to mention that I am in no way a morel mushroom hunter “expert”.
I’m far from it! Honestly, I had no clue what they even looked like until my sister showed them to me under some pine trees in our yard. There they were, four small, tan-colored little “hats” sprouting out of the pine needle covered ground. I was so excited! We left them for another day or so and then found three more that had come up right in front of my sisters truck that were even bigger! Now, it was time to finally pluck these little things from the ground and eat them.
First though, you have to cook them.
My sister asked her friend who is way more experienced in hunting mushrooms than us, how to cook them. He said that after letting them soak in water for about an hour, he cut them in half (so they lay flat), added a little butter and olive oil in a frying pan, and the fried the mushrooms in it.
My sister followed his instructions and a short time later, we had fried morel mushrooms cooling on a plate. The smell was mouthwatering. I couldn’t handle it any longer. I stabbed one slice of morel mushroom with my fork and then took my first bite.
I’m a fan of Andrew Zimmern, the guy who eats all sorts of crazy stuff on television. When he tries something that is out of this world amazing, he makes a certain face of utter approval, aka, The Andrew Zimmern Face. I made The Andrew Zimmern Face when I tasted my first morel mushroom. They are by far the best mushrooms I have ever eaten.
After that first taste, the hunt was on.
Our First Attempt at Hunting Morel Mushrooms
My sister and I were researching, watching, and asking others about hunting morel mushrooms.
We were more or less obsessed with finding these cone-shaped, little mushrooms that had the most amazing taste! So for the next 10 days, we searched in areas where we were such to find lots of morel mushrooms. I mean, everyone else in our area was finding 30 or more during one short hunting trip!
We were motivated.
We had our backpack, boots, and walking sticks and eyes locked on the ground ready to find these mushrooms. But we didn’t. We didn’t find one single mushroom on our first big hunt. That discouraged us a little but we tried again.
The next day, we tried a different spot. Our hunt for the morels started off slow. We just weren’t finding them! Then, I came upon an old crab apple tree and just below it were three fairly decent sized morel mushrooms. I had finally found a mushroom all on my own! I was thrilled and that find motivated us to keep looking.
We even recruited an Appalachian Trail hiker named Runaway Jim to help us for a bit. He was such a character but he didn’t find any more either. So we went home fried up, and ate our three mushrooms. All that walking and hunting for only three mushrooms?!
What were we doing wrong?!
We decided to take a break. We had walked everywhere trying to find these darn mushrooms and would only find maybe three or four in one trip. It was especially discouraging to see others post their morel mushroom hauls online for us and everyone else to see.
During our break we learned that you actually look more at the trees than the ground. Morel mushrooms tend to pop up around certain types of trees. So with that new knowledge in mind, we finally headed back out to a new spot that our dad had suggested that we look.
Our Second Attempt at Hunting Morel Mushrooms
Once again, we packed up our backpack, slipped on our boots, grabbed out walking sticks, and headed for the new spot.
As we followed a deer trail down the bank to the woods below, I found a morel mushroom! We hadn’t even made it into our new spot and we had found one. We got so excited that when I found it, my sister turned around in excitement too and stepped on a huge morel mushroom! She was so mad at herself for stepping on one but you better believe we scooped up what remained of the mushroom and dropped it into our bag.
We then headed farther down into the wooded area that we had scoped out the day before. My sister and I split up a bit and every few minutes one of us would shout out, “found one”!!
We had finally hit the mushroom jackpot.
Well, to us it was the jackpot. After hunting around that spot for about two hours we came home with our largest haul yet, 31 morel mushrooms! We were ecstatic! We brought our mushrooms home, washed and soaked them, and then began frying them. The smell that filled the house was intoxicating. We couldn’t wait to finally fill our bellies with these delicious mushrooms. It was such a satisfying feeling to know that we had hunted, found, washed, and cooked this food all by ourselves.
My sister and I had decided around the middle of this first morel mushroom hunting experience that if we finally found the jackpot, we wouldn’t hunt for any more. And we didn’t. After we found those 31 mushrooms that evening, our mushroom hunting season was over. I did learn a lot from my first experience though.
What I Learned Hunting Morel Mushrooms
- It was a struggle to not give up on looking for those things. But I learned that having patience is key when hunting morel mushrooms.
- I learned about trees and how to identify some of them, at least the important ones that you need to look for when hunting morels. We found the most luck around apple trees!
- And last but certainly not least, I learned just how freakin’ good a fried morel mushroom tastes.
I can’t wait until the next morel mushroom hunting season!
Have you ever eaten a morel mushroom? Have you ever hunted for mushrooms before? I’d like to know your experience! Let me know in the comments below!
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