The Morel Mushroom.....Mother Nature's Hidden Gem.

grayeagle
I grew up in the upper panhandle of Idaho and we mostly collected two of my favorite mushrooms, morels in the spring and shaggy manes in the fall. We would split them length wise and wash and clean them thoroughly. Mother would then coat them in flour and fry them in fresh cream butter. Those of you have eaten them properly prepared know what I am talking about when I saw divine!

One spring while I was working for the USGS establishing elevations for maps, we were driving up a very old logging road and forded a small stream and crested the opposite bank when there before us was the most breath taking scene I will never forget. As far as the eye could see, nothing but morels. My supervisor who was riding passenger couldn't understand why I hit the breaks so hard.

I got down out of the truck and just stood there. He looked at me with a startled face and asked what the hell was I doing. He had never seen them before because he was from LA. After I explained what he was looking at he willingly helped me fill burlap bag after bag full of them. That night I had him come to dinner and my mother cooked up a morel feast that was like none I had ever seen. I thought he was going to orgasm the way he was eating and moaning.

The rest of them my mother froze in old milk cartons after washing and cleaning them. Then during winter mother would take out some frozen trout and a carton of mushrooms and we would feast. OMG what wonderful memories!

Awesome!!!!! I love getting people to eat morels that have never tried them. My dad and I once picked about 50 or so during the rain. We took them down to the riverbank, cleaned them, sacked them and fished for a little bit. Probably 2-3 hours went by. We caught a nice stringer of blue cats and headed back thru the same spot we just picked the 50 and there were 100's!!! They had just popped up within 2-3 hours!!!

My brother refuses to eat them. I can eat 50 morels in front of him but he ain't touching them. More for me!!

My mom used to make a morel risotto. God............amazing..........mmmmmm!!!!