Morel Mother Load

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just a few pics from what I spend a lot of time doing each spring. Morels

Yellow morels Morchella esculenta
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MOTHER LOAD of yellows
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Young fresh black morels
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Forrest
 
That is truly a box of yellow gold. Those are so good. Our season is now till May but it's been dry. Happy eating!!!

--Allen--
 
That is truly a box of yellow gold. Those are so good. Our season is now till May but it's been dry. Happy eating!!!

--Allen--

we've been real dry and hot too, despite that nice find it has not been a good year, lots of shrooms got fried by the heat. I've done a good bit of hiking to come across these, if I can manage to find a few similar dead elms with this kind of action I'll be set for the year again.

Forrest
 
:drool::drool::drool: I have had morels once. I purchased from a local farmers market and sauteed with shallots/butter and paired with Copper River king salmon-I would highly recommend :drool::drool::drool:.

Susan
 
That's just awesome. Congrats on the huge haul. Hunting morels is one of my favorite things to do. I was supposed to go today, but it's been too dry. Thanks for sharing the photos!
 
They look beautiful and I'm sure they're delicious, but wild mushrooms always make me nervous. Every year it seems we hear of another case of someone eating the "wrong" wild mushroom and either dying or needing a liver transplant. So I'll gratefully enjoy them from afar and vicariously through you. By the way, I can't seem to figure out the difference between the two varieties you mentioned.
 
Eeeeew. I do not eat fungi as a general rule. My husband however is envious!
 
By the way, I can't seem to figure out the difference between the two varieties you mentioned.

not a really good picture to tell because the black morels are almost white when they are young, when I picked these a week later they were black. Other than that it is the spore, stem attachment, and pore shape that are distinctive, but both are great edibles.

Forrest
 
They look beautiful and I'm sure they're delicious, but wild mushrooms always make me nervous. Every year it seems we hear of another case of someone eating the "wrong" wild mushroom and either dying or needing a liver transplant. So I'll gratefully enjoy them from afar and vicariously through you.

I felt the same way until I went harvesting with some experienced mushroom hunters. If you stay away from the small white ones (which I do), there is very little ambiguity about what's safe and what isn't, at least in my area. I've found it to be pretty easy to ID tasty boletes, hen of the woods, chicken of the woods, honey mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and chanterelles.
 
I felt the same way until I went harvesting with some experienced mushroom hunters. If you stay away from the small white ones (which I do), there is very little ambiguity about what's safe and what isn't, at least in my area. I've found it to be pretty easy to ID tasty boletes, hen of the woods, chicken of the woods, honey mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and chanterelles.

Your list is the short list of mushrooms that are fairly easy to identify and that have few 'look alikes' that are dangerously toxic. I think the worst you would get is a little indigestion if you made a mistake.

Our spring is about 3 or 4 weeks behind yours, I did not find any morels on my walk today, and I was looking.

The parasol mushrooms, also Agaricus, Lepiota, many of the Psilocybe mushrooms have deadly look alikes that really could kill if you are not meticulous with your identification. Stay away from them "little brown mushrooms", unless you have an experienced guide AND take the time to do a spore print in addition to careful reading through your identification guides. I once thought I had found a 'velvet foot', Flammulina velutipes, a fall to winter mushroom that is very edible. The spore print showed I had found a Deadly Galerina, Galerina autumnalis. Luckily, my nephew insisted on the spore print before we tasted it. Easy to do a spore print, all you need is a clean piece of paper and a cup to invert over the mushroom cap. The cup or glass keeps a breeze from distrurbing the spores as they drop. Check any of the guide books for details on how to do a spore print.

Morels are so distinctive, and unique, that they are one of the few that I would say anyone can find and accurately identify from a guide book. The false morel, its most common look alike is not edible, but it is not deadly either. The morel is one of the best tasting mushrooms, and a safe one to boot.
 
Morels are fantastic! I haven't found any in several years, but I do buy them from time to time. Always of course a person must be very careful with identification since the look-alikes can be very toxic indeed!
 
Double Yummmmm! I love morels, but are they ever expensive in the stores!

Right now the woods in your area are having a free, pick your own event. According to my morel forum many folks are finding black morels in Michigan right now. Some day I will go on a super foraging tip from Georgia in March to Minnesota in May/June, some day.

Forrest
 
Forrest, We have only found a few this year..might be a bit early here and it has been dry here.

Old folks here in the Appalachian Mts. call them "dry land fish" , because when they are dipped in egg /milk mixture , rolled in cornmeal and lightly sauteed..they do taste like pan fried fish ! Yummy !
 
Right now the woods in your area are having a free, pick your own event. According to my morel forum many folks are finding black morels in Michigan right now. Some day I will go on a super foraging tip from Georgia in March to Minnesota in May/June, some day.

Forrest
I used to go Morelling with my Dad many years ago in our woods, but I don't have the knowledge or confidence anymore to even attempt this now.
 
We were too dry to have mushrooms until the rains came a few days ago. Now I am sure the morels are up out there, but I do not know any good areas nearby for gathering them. The highly productive woodland areas I know of are significantly north of here. I'll get around to it again some year, but I'm too busy to bother with morels just now. :p
 
2011 My best Morel year ever

My favorite time of the year, morel mushroom hunting season, has come and gone and it was the best year ever. I collected just shy of 20lbs in only 6 2-3 hour hunts. My friends and I have feasted, I have preserved a stash for hardy winter soups and thus have well satiated the morel beast in my brain for yet another year. Oh wait, what's that Megan? We're going to Indiana to see your family for Easter next weekend? Morels will be peaking in IN then so tell them I said hello from the woods, that'll be my kind of easter egg hunt!!!

black morels
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yellow morels
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