Thursday, May 22, 2008

Green (but Unproductive) Pastures

Both the apples and the lilacs are in bloom, and still no morels on our hillsides. Maybe I haven’t been hunting hard enough, but it has been raining. Rain and hail, actually.

Looking for more information, we found Tom Seymour’s Foraging New England. Although unhelpful about morels (they are “where you find them”), he does recommend some greens that we haven’t previously considered as food, including nettles and trillium.

In an entertaining and well-written piece, Sharon Parquette Nimtz of the Rutland Herald says that she often has good luck on high cliffs.

Time to start climbing, I guess, before the season is gone.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Where Next?

Now that mid-May approaches, our hunt for morels has taken on a new urgency.

Apples have begun to bloom, and strawberries, while the fiddleheads are waist high.

We’ve covered a lot of ground, from streambanks to hillsides, with nothing to report, but others have found them in their gardens.

Part of the problem is not knowing where to look. This article in Mushroom, the journal of wild mushrooming, notes that “if you find false morels in a location, it’s probably a good place to look for true ones a little later in the season.”


We’ve found a lot of false ones, many of which have dried up since first sighting. So rain might be the missing ingredient.

In this 2006 newsletter from the New York Mycological Society, Dennis Aita argues that “If you’re hunting at the right time of year—the apple blossoms are out and the lilacs are half in bloom—and you’re not seeing morels under the decaying apple and elm trees, then you should get in your car and drive somewhere else.”

Monday, May 5, 2008

Lust, Caution

At long last, something to eat. We found the fiddleheads near the top of a hill, by an old stone wall. They were just starting to rise, but easily visible in a groundscape newly released from months of flattening snow.


We ate them steamed last night, unadulterated even by salt, and again tonight, with crumbles of gorgonzola and a dash of fig-infused vinegar.

As it turned out, I also acquired a tick, and a rash, and a prescription for a two-week dosage of antibiotics. Lyme disease is not widespread in Vermont, but common enough to err on the side of caution.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Beware False Hopes

Because most of the fall and an entire winter passed without a single incidence of harvest, I am making resolutions. To spend more time outdoors this year, eyes open, on hands and knees if necessary.

In Montana we have sometimes found morels by this date, and wild asparagus.

So far this spring I’ve discovered only false morels and a seemingly inedible variety of fiddlehead.

Unlike true morels, the cap of a false morel is not hollow. For a good description of this potentially poisonous imposter, check out the Great Morel.

Morels occupy a hallowed place in our family lore. If you’re interested in the story, you can find it on this page at Prairie Home Companion.