The outdoor pastime of gathering wild edible plants goes back to the very beginning of humankind, when it was done simply in order to survive.
Gathering truly goes hand in hand with hunting, trapping and fishing (hence, the term "hunter-gatherers").
Mushrooms come to mind right away, and when it comes to picking springtime mushrooms (of which there are a wide variety), I stick strictly to morels, which are the only edible fungi I'm truly familiar with and am comfortable eating.
The fact is, I absolutely love eating morels, which have a very distinct flavor that is both earthy and nutty and truly relates to spring. I recognize two types, the black and the yellow, and both work for me and taste the same, to me, anyway.
Efforts to cultivate morels have been mostly unsuccessful, because this unique mushroom prefers a natural woodsy environment that is closely associated to trees.
I usually find yellow morels associated with deciduous trees, and black morels in a more conifer setting. Because morels can be difficult to find and are probably the most popular mushroom in the world, those sold commercially command a high price, and were harvested in the wild.
I saw a quart jar filled with dried black morels that had a $40 price tag, which for an old morel hunter like me sounded quite reasonable, because I know what it took to collect that many.
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Due to a honeycomb exterior, morels, such as this yellow one, are easy to recognize. (Tom Lounsbury/Hearst Michigan)
Due to a honeycomb exterior, morels, such as this yellow one, are easy to recognize. (Tom Lounsbury/Hearst Michigan)
Due to a honeycomb exterior, morels, such as this yellow one, are easy to recognize. (Tom Lounsbury/Hearst Michigan)
Due to a honeycomb exterior, morels, such as this yellow one, are easy to recognize. (Tom Lounsbury/Hearst Michigan)
However, I have yet to sell any morels, or give any away, and am a bit greedy (and very secretive as to where I find them) in this regard.
Morels don't keep well, although they can be refrigerated for up to a week, maybe. Needless to say, folks, morels don't sit in our refrigerator for very long, and the only way to store them is by drying. That's why those sold commercially are dried morels.
I have to blame spring turkey hunting on my passion for morels. Hunting morels and hunting wild turkeys often go hand in hand for me, and I've found some of my best morel hotspots while scouting for and pursuing the wary big birds here in Michigan. I never hesitate to unload and set my shotgun down to gather a supply of fresh morels.
But doing this caused me a bit of panicked grief one time while I was spring turkey hunting on public land near Fairview, in Oscoda County. One foggy morning, after the sun had brightened everything up on a heavily wooded hilltop, I quickly discovered that I was sitting in the biggest patch of black morels I had ever discovered.
They were here, there and in thick clusters everywhere. And, since the gobbler I had been conversing with since daybreak had apparently lost interest and was moving away instead of coming in, my priorities took an abrupt change.
I unloaded and securely leaned my camo-painted shotgun against the nearest hardwood tree and took my camouflage jacket off to create an improvised bag, and began scrambling around gathering morels here and there on the hillside like a starved squirrel going after acorns.
In no time at all, my improvised bag was as packed full as it could be. I threw it over my shoulder and decided it was time to retrieve my shotgun, which I naturally presumed was close at hand, and head out with my bounty.
Well, folks, natural presumptions can often truly ruin your day, trust me.
It didn't take me long to realize that the hardwood trees on that hilltop (which were fully intermixed with clumps of jack pines) all looked alike, and in my meandering here and there with a total focus on morels, I had become a bit disoriented.
I knew where I was, mind you. I just didn't exactly know where my shotgun was, leaning somewhere in the thick maze of trees. A moment like this tends to be filled with an utter sense of futile panic.
It was readily apparent that my camo-painted shotgun had become a chameleon, especially leaning somewhere against a drab, moss-covered tree trunk amidst a whole bunch of drab, moss-covered tree trunks surrounded by jack pines.
I took time to take a few deep breaths, settle down and ponder the situation. It was clear that a grid search was in order, just like in sorting out a difficult blood-trail.
I began the painstaking tree-by-tree search, using a lightning-struck tree at the top of the hill as an obvious landmark to perform my grid effectively (and I hung onto my camouflage bag of morels, as I didn't want to lose that as well).
I eventually found my shotgun, but not until a heart-throbbing hour or so later. In fact it was doing such a good job blending in that I almost moved right on by and had to do a double-take to make sure I wasn't seeing things.
I gave my shotgun a smooch like a long-lost love, and I have ever since kept my camouflaged turkey guns (unloaded, of course) leaning only briefly against a tree real close by, whenever I get sidetracked while gathering morels.
There certainly are times when I go into the woods to solely hunt for morels, which is a favorite springtime pastime for quite a lot of folks in Michigan, who are generally a bit secretive. Avid "gatherers" tend to be that way about their favorite spots. It is what it is.
Several springs ago, my son Josh located the first morels on our family farm (which contains a relatively young and continually growing "woods" that I planted myself over the years).
They were the big and plump yellow variety, and I was highly elated to know such was real close at hand. Josh has continued to find more each spring, which lets me know they are spreading, much to my delight.
Then, Josh discovered another large patch of morels, but this one was intermixed with poison ivy.
Poison ivy and I don't get along at all, and I even start itching just thinking about it. Needless to say, that was the most unmolested patch of morels ever. It was my hope that those particular morels would send out plenty of spores to propagate, which may have happened.
A couple springs ago, I discovered a large patch of yellow morels in the apple orchard right next to our house. This turned into the most convenient morel-picking moment I had ever experienced, with some grandchildren on hand as well.
There was also a ready supply of wild asparagus in a nearby fence row, and Josh, being a gourmet cook, prepared a dandy morel and asparagus dish in cream sauce that was out of this world, and it went well with grilled venison chops.
Another woodland delicacy I would like to see growing on my farm, but haven't as of yet, is the wild leek. This wild onion species of the eastern woodlands has other names, such as wild garlic, and is more popularly known in the Appalachians as a ramp.
In fact, it is so popular that there are even ramp festivals in some southern states. It is also so popular in the Canadian province of Quebec that it has been put on the endangered list there. Chicago is actually named after this flavorful plant, from a Native American word for wild leeks, "chicagou."
I have my favorite local wild leek hot spots, and it is an easy plant to identify with its broad green leaves and burgundy lower stems which grow in low, dense clumps.
I use a small garden spade to easily bring up the clumps of bulbs that smell a lot like garlic but taste more like a mild-flavored onion (at least to me). The entire plant is edible, and I especially like dicing up the bulbs and frying them with morels, producing a very unique and distinct springtime flavor.
Wild leeks are excellent when battered and deep-fried, but I also like to eat them raw in salads.
I've been known to nibble on wild leeks whenever I find them while turkey hunting, and my wife Ginny can always tell because I come home with a bad case of "garlic breath."
They do have a lasting effect in this manner, but I truly love wild leeks, which to me are way more flavorful than the garden variety.
As with the morels, I keep my wild leek locations all to myself because, like I mentioned before, we woodsy-type "gatherers" are usually a secretive and a bit stingy lot.
Email Tom Lounsbury at tlounsburyoutdoors@gmail.com.
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May 07, 2020 at 12:03PM
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Tom Lounsbury: An ancient, and tasty, outdoor pastime - Midland Daily News
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