Isaac thinks they look like cooked slugs. He’s actually not all that far off, they don’t look all that delectable. But personally I think the presentation is a big part of it. I had only been able to scavenge three shrooms, and not very big ones either, so even on the small salad-sized pewter plate lined with a folded section of newspaper to soak up the excess oil (butter), they swam. They looked kind of listless, limp, and glossy brown: most definitely slug-like. But they also, in a weird sort of butter soaked, lightly battered way, looked really delicious. This is how it happened:
I hem and haw all day. Should I cook the morels (or at least what I thought were morels) for dinner? It was probably my last chance at the mushrooms this year, and already they were past their freshest moment. Being a mushroom picking newbie, my personal criteria to myself had been a) get a book, and b) ask at least one knowledgeable person to look at them (ie: someone who has picked these mushrooms regularly). I had the book: Mushrooms Demystified, by David Arora, a very writerly and wise sounding name, I thought. His book is good. It’s a tome, in the most basic sense of the word: full, knowledgeable, and lengthy (it’s 2 ¼ inches thick!). From reading the book I came to within 95 percent sure that the mushrooms sprouting up all over our yard were most definitely black morels. But there was still that insistent, nagging voice in my brain the kept me from actually picking them. ‘You don’t know for sure… mushrooms can make you very sick, they can actually kill you’. Yeah, yeah. But really, mushroom are no more dangerous than any wild gathering one might do, they just get an especially bad rap for some reason. Perfect example in the book: someone comes in carrying a wild onion they found ‘hey, let’s put this in the stew tonight!’ Great, no qualms. Everyone looks at the harvester with a mix of envy (why couldn’t I have been the one to bring home the wild goods) and adoration (wow, so-and-so is so enthusiastic, and quaint, how nice). And yet in reality, that “wild onion”, at least out in these parts, could just as well be a Death Camis, one of the most deadly wild plants around, and conveniently it looks very similar to the Camis Lily, whose roots are edible, but in order to distinguish between the two you must see them both in flower, which happens at different times of year, making the comparison very difficult. And yet, in that same scenario, if the person had breezed in the door brandishing some wild mushrooms, and making the same exclamation about putting them in that nights stew pot, no doubt their reception would have been much different. It would have consisted of some looks of extreme worry, some whispered, or not-so-whispered remarks about poisonous and deadly, and some politely yet firmly dealt rejections as to their intended destination.
So back to that particular day. I hemmed and hawed as I spent the morning in the yurt logging footage, and packing up to go out again the next day (Isaac was out filming at Blue Bunch all day, but intended to return for dinner that night). I thought of a billion different recipes as I checked e-mails in the office, and I stewed some more as I walked around town on errands. As I was returning to the office to get in the car to come home, I ran into a friend, who happened to be an experienced morel picker. After catching up with each others lives, I asked her about the mushrooms, and after a brief tne minute discussion, I was thoroughly convinced that these truly were morels, and should be picked and made into dinner that very night.
When I got home, I set out into the yard armed with confidence, and a basket. Ok, I hadn’t quite completely filled my personal criteria. I hadn’t physically shown the mushrooms to anyone. But I was confident enough to skip over that minor detail and pick mushrooms. I had some dissapointment coming to me when I traipsed about the yard, and found that most of the mushrooms I had been drooling over and all but singing lullabys to, were too far gone. I had waited too long. But I did find three decent specimens which I popped into my basket and took to the yurt.
That night, not as dinner, but as a scrumptious (all the more so because there were only three) appetizer, we ate morels. Dusted lightly in spelt flour, salt and pepper, and sautéed in butter, they were exquisite, even though Isaac commented about cooked slugs. Think escargot, or whelks. They certainly have an exotic quality to them.
Later: We were able to find another harvest when we went for our last week down near Stanley. The elevation is much higher where we were, and the morels quite a bit farther behind the ones here in McCall. We found enough to eat there, cooked plainly with our pasta, and even to bring home a (homemade cardboard) flat of them to cook for a main meal back at the yurt. I think we’re both hooked now… I know I am at least. The hunt is most certainly a good part of the fun, made all the better knowing what deliscouness awaits your tongue. Yummmmmm….
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