The last time I had eaten morels was when I was in elementary school -- that was a long time ago! I found that they are still as fantastic as I remember, and my son loves them too!Too bad they are so hard to find. Although I looked hard on the rest of the walk, I only came back with the one. Oh, well.
But there is hope!!
Yesterday, I took a quick peak around the garden to see what was blooming before heading to work, and stumbled upon this monster!!
It was growing in my creeping phlox. I have never seen a morel this large in my life. Our neighbor's son collects them and joked that he would love to find one as big as our concrete statues. This one isn't that much smaller!
Too bad it was past it's prime by the time I found it. It would have made a whole meal. But, hopefully, it will do what it was designed to do and make more.
6 comments:
Several people at I work go out every spring and pick morels. I have some growing on my farm--I think--in the area where old elm trees grew. Checked out several websites to make sure I could identify them. All the sites contained info about false morels which has me scared off. Guess I'm overly cautious.
Someone...somewhere along the line totally freaked me out about eating poison mushrooms. I would have to grow them myself. Wish I DID grow some myself! I am a mushroom lover too.
Sylvana, how lucky you were! We didn't get any morels this year and it was supposedly shaping up to be a good year for them until, ahem, all that rain started heading our way and it put the kibosh on them. They are my favorites, rivaling even French truffles (which I've only eaten in France, lol).
I hope too that your mega morel rewards you next year!
Roses and Lilacs & Promrozie, the nice thing about morels is that there really isn't a good copycat -- they are pretty much unique. The key to determining their nearest look-a-like from them is to slice them open. The morel will be fused as one piece head to foot and will be truly hollow inside -- the others will not. Of course, it is highly advisable to go out picking with an experienced mushroom hunter, so Roses and Lilacs, go with your co-workers!!
Iowa VG, this is the first time that I have actually seen them growing in the wild (if you can call my garden "the wild" :) I've eaten enough of them and talked with enough morel hunters to know what to look for, or I would not have eaten the one I found on my walk in the woods. I've never had a truffle before, but would like to try it -- except I'm afraid that I might fall in love with it too!
Sylvana, lol about truffles! They're a bit of an acquired, but lovely, taste, thus enjoyed best sparingly. I can't imagine chowing down on a whole truffle, it would just be too intense all at once! I'd rather just have a nice plate of Morels, which I missed so much this year.
I think once you've seen them in the wild, you know exactly what you're looking for and there's no mistaking them. But your suggestion above is right on, hollow inside, you've got the right thing!
I looked at your profile and we all have some quite similar tastes in music and films, what a cool thing! We just watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas again recently and it's every bit as good as the previous (probably 6 or 7) times! I've been a fan of Gilliam for years (Brazil is still his masterpiece IMHO), and am looking forward to the one in progress (the one Heath Ledger was in). Too bad he never finished that Don Quijote, because what I've seen of what he did was very good...
Iowa VG, that's the great thing about the internet -- finding more people you have things in common with!
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