This morel measures about eight inches high.
MY SISTER, LANAE, and her husband, Dale, were giddy as two kids in a candy store when Dale walked in with the net bag plumped with a dozen morels.
Lanae grabbed her camera. I grabbed mine. And we photographed the largest morels I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve seen many of these tasty mushrooms…but the tallest, an eight-inch high chunky morel, certainly impressed me.
It’s been a bumper crop year for morels in Minnesota, according to my brother-in-law, who has been hunting for this savory spring treat since he was a kid growing up in southwestern Iowa. He remembers piling into the family car afer church on hot, humid mornings and heading to the wooded hills west of Defiance to search for morels.
Dale lives in southeastern Minnesota now and, through the years, has uncovered morel hotbeds. He revealed the location of his latest find—within a half hour of his Waseca home—and then instructed me, with a grin spreading across this face, that he’d have to kill me if I shared the specific location.
My lips are zipped.
However, Dale offered this publishable tip to finding morels: on the south side of wooded hillsides where there are dead elms or where elms once grew.
I didn’t realize just how serious my brother-in-law is about this morel business until he sat down at his laptop and clicked onto morels.com, an online community bulletin board/information center for “Morel Madness 2012.” Here you can see photos of the latest morel finds and, surprisingly, even find out where to find morels. Or you can inquire about buying and selling.
Dale tells me morels were selling recently for $20 – $35 a pound on Craig’s list and eBay.
While earlier this spring my sister and her husband bought morels, they have plenty of their own now. A week ago Saturday Dale harvested some 65 morels from one location. Morels are sprouting two weeks earlier and are more abundant than normal this year, probably due to the unseasonably warm April, he speculates. The season has nearly ended now.
But this morel-loving couple will still be eating mushrooms into the summer and beyond as Dale dehydrates them. For now, this pair savors fresh morels, sauteed in butter. Lanae even saves the butter and reuses it to fry eggs, to make grilled cheese sandwiches and to put on asparagus. The butter has a “nice nutty flavor,” she says.
All of this morel show-and-tell got me interested in morels, which I found once perhaps two decades ago in the woods behind my house. I’ll admit, though, to a bit of nervousness over identifying morels.
Dale showed me a photo of a poisonous false morel and then offered this advice: “If it ain’t hollow, don’t swallow.”
Translate that to mean that edible morels are hollow inside. If you click here to Mushroom-Appreciation.com, you’ll find even more useful identification tips. I wouldn’t want you heading into the woods uninformed.
Perhaps next year my brother-in-law will allow me to join him on a morel hunt, if I promise not to photograph anything specific to give away his secret location.
Dale’s latest stash of morels, harvested on Saturday morning near his Waseca home.
© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
The morel thing is hilarious. Johns ears prick up when he hears anyone discussing them and he still has never found any. I shall tell him though elms! .. hills!.. South Side. OK, well we have elms, but i can go months without seeing a hill!! c
Oh, my, John would have been drooling over these morels. Tell him probably not to bother searching for morels anymore this year, though, as you are further south than me and your season has likely ended. I totally understand the “going for months without seeing a hill” comment given I grew up in landscape similar to yours.
We have had a very good season here (extreme S.E. corner of MN near Houston)…..Haven’t dehydrated any but did manage to have many meals and shared much. Yummy post!!
So…without giving away specific locations, do you have any tips on where to find morels? Any speculation on why this year rated as a particularly good one? And how do you prepare your morels?
Elm trees are a ‘must’ + rain+70’s-50’sF. We questioned the same thing and those were the ‘ingredients’ needed and those are what we have had this spring around here. I saute them in butter and olive oil with a little garlic. Some I have put in the frig loosely covered for a couple of days to dry a bit and then sliced and put on pizza with fresh asparagus from our garden. Excellent!
I never would have thought to put asparagus on a pizza. With those morels, this sounds like an especially tasty pizza I would enjoy. I absolutely love asparagus.
Check this out (I have made this many times…awesome!!!!): http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/main-courses/shaved-asparagus-pizza/
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I love mushrooms, but have never picked one, they kind of creep me out in their raw form.
Mushrooms seem to be one of those foods that people either like or can’t stand. I am on the “like” side and appreciate mushrooms raw in a salad or cooked.
What a great post Audrey. I have never had a morel. I do like mushrooms though but perhaps that’s a variety we can’t get here. And to be able to go out into the woods and harvest your own – that would be like panning for gold! And what a great harvest and an incredible saving he got by finding his own. Best you keep where he finds them a secret or he’ll have to fight off the crowds next season xx
Oh, yes, my lips will not spill forth the location, not that I know anyway EXACTLY where my brother-in-law found the morels. Others also scout the same area, he says. Part of the interest in finding morels is likely in the thrill of the hunt, as you suggest.
My parents used to pick Morels when we lived on Orcas Island. They either never let me have them (selfishly) or never encouraged me to have them (becuase they assumed I wouldn’t like them)!! They’d also pick Shaggy Manes, as they called them. Again, I don’t recall tasting them! I don’t think I’ve ever found them growing in MN…
Oh, Shaggy Manes do grow in Minnesota. When we were first married and lived in a rented lake cabin just outside of Faribault, I picked Shaggy Manes in our yard. Our next door neighbor, from Illinois, taught me about these tasty, edible mushrooms. Smart parents to keep the morels to themselves.