…I could still smell the meaty perfume of the morels, these fleshy buttons of protein popping out of the dead earth, this seemingly spontaneous combustion of food…Oh, it can be hard work, hunting and gathering, but…this felt like something for nothing, a wondrous and unaccountable gift.
~ Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma

The back story.
Dave Kolter is my brother-in-law and my supplier of morels. He lives in a picturesque town on the banks of the Minnesota River, known also as the Land of the Jolly Green Giant. ("Ho, Ho, Ho!")

Glacial action left extremely fertile soil in this valley which in turn proved to be a perfect spot for a canning company. During the heyday of the Green Giant Company, surrounding fields yielded bumper crops and summer days positively hummed as acres of early June peas and Niblets sweet corn were picked and trucked to the huge processing plant in Le Seuer.

Dave has spent his entire life in the area and has always spent time outdoors. As a child he hunted the woods and fields and fished in the river. For many years, he earned extra income by trapping fox, mink, muskrat, raccoon and beaver and selling the fur. Dave became thoroughly and intimately knowledgeable of the valley's hills, dales, fields and streams.

One can imagine, then, that Dave knows precisely where to look each spring for that intriguing combination of soil, plants and fungi that will yield morels. He commented, "Some years are better than others. It mostly depends on moisture."

This was a good year and with much gratitude and ceremony, my husband, Jerry, and I recently received our fix.

What is a morel?
Morels are members of a group of organisms known as fungi which, for decades, was considered part of the Plant Kingdom along with Angiosperms (flowering plants) and Gymnosperms (plants forming seeds in exposed positions). Taxonomy is somewhat of an ever-evolving science, however, and now taxonomists have awarded fungi their own kingdom, separate from both plants and animals.

Fungi aren't like plants for key reasons. They don't have chloroplasts to produce chlorophyll and so are unable to carry out the process of photosynthesis and produce their own food. Fungi must rely on other things–soil, plants and other organic materials–for sustenance. In the big scheme, fungi perform a vital role in decomposition and nutrient recycling.

Fungi generally have an extensive network of underground fibers called mycelium (plural is mycelia), some of which live for decades and even centuries. These mycelia remain dormant until beneficial conditions exist for production of fruiting bodies–or mushrooms–at the tips of each mycelium. Mushrooms then produce spores which are spread by the wind. If a spore lands in a favorable spot, mycelia will advance and the cycle is replicated.

Fungi represent two of the foodie world's delicacies: truffles and morels.

In our region, black (Morchella angusticeps) and white (M. esculenta) morels are common. The caps of both are somewhat cone-shaped and stem and head are hollow. The surfaces of the caps appear pitted and gouged. While morels seem to prefer an alkaline soil they also grow in acidic conditions. They can be found in forests, old orchards and disturbed and burned areas. Some foragers are guided by the acronym PETSBASH–pine, elm, tulip tree, sassafras, beech, ash, sycamore, hickory.

Dave Kolter has winnowed his search to dying elm trees: "when the bark first starts peeling off the tree trunk and falls to the ground is the best time."

The morel meals.
Jerry and I have been equally savoring and hoarding our stash of morels. Some, of course, we ate immediately. But morels will keep nicely for several weeks when stored in a paper bag in the refrigerator. If they dry out, simply soak in water and within a minute or two they will completely rehydrate.

One evening I prepared a pasta dish adapted from a Melissa Clark recipe, Creamed Morels on Chive Butter Toast, from The New York Times. The simple sauce contains morels, butter, shallots, white wine, cream and chives. Similar ingredients were used for a delicious weekend breakfast of softly scrambled eggs, sautéed morels and chives.

For the final morel meal, we gorged on our favorite, down-home preparation which really has no name. Morels are dipped in an egg wash, rolled in crushed Saltine crackers and sautéed in butter until crunchy and golden brown. We paired them with fresh crappy fillets and opened bottles of Schell's Maifest for an ideal spring dinner.

This also appears in the Askov American, Askov, Minnesota. Photo above by Dave Kolter.