Morel safety checklist
The best way to tell if a morel is a morel is to slice it in half; morels are hollow from top to bottom. False morels will be mostly solid with just a few voids; toss them. As foragers say about the morel: “If it’s hollow, you can swallow.”
• season: after last spring frost, before trees leaf out
• grow under tulip poplars, elms, ashes or apple trees
• grow from the ground; perhaps covered by fallen leaves
• dull or dark-colored conical cap with irregular honeycombs
Cut your morel in half, from top to bottom. Both the stalk and cap will be completely empty — unless there are a few bugs, another reason to slice them open before cooking. Novices can easily learn to safely identify morels. As the old folks say, “If it’s hollow, you can swallow.”
True, with some wishful thinking, a few mushrooms look enough like a morel to earn the name
“false morels,” but they are mostly solid inside and look like a brain on the outside. If you find those, leave them be. They are either unappetizing or will play havoc with your digestion.
Morel mushrooms ( Mochella deliciosa, M. esculenta, M. elata) are the very best of the several edible mushrooms that fruit in spring. They have a meatier texture than store-bought mushrooms. Chefs and farmers market shoppers will pay $25 to $50 a pound for fresh or dried morels. And if you’ve ever had them in a stew, perhaps with venison and ramps, you’d understand why.
Put any surplus in a dehydrator overnight at about 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Save them in a jar in your cupboard. Rehydrate for a few minutes in wine or water before adding to a sauté pan, or toss them straight into a soup pot. Morels erupt in mid-spring, after the last frost, but before the trees leaf out. They seem to be triggered by a good rain about the time the soil temperature reaches 53 degrees.
Being a good morel hunter means being a good tree hunter. The submersed part of a morel — its inedible, stringy mycelia — grows underground in collaboration with roots of tulip poplars, elms, ashes and old apple trees. In the Midwest and Pacific Northwest, last year’s forest fires trigger morels with great flushes arising from blackened soil. Unfortunately, southern morels haven’t learned this trick. So please don’t set fire to your neighbor’s woods, thinking you’ll get morels!
You may not find morels on your first foray. Most mushrooms announce themselves with bright colors: yellow, orange, red or blue. But morels camouflage themselves. They wear the brownish grays of fallen leaves;
their outline broken up by the shadowy honeycomb of craters in their caps.
My proven technique for finding morels? I often stop in disappointment and disgust at being empty-handed even though I’m standing amongst massive tulip poplars or elms (dying elms especially). Then I look down at my feet. Sometimes I’m surprised to find myself standing in the middle of a little village of modest morels. Then I use my pocketknife to cut them off at soil level (no sense getting dirt in all those craters) and debate the various ways to cook them on my way home.
Lip-Smacking Smilax
Few people walk through the woods without tangling with smilax vines at some point. Also known as catbrier, greenbrier, bull briar and chainey briar, this sprawling plant is covered with little, sharp spines that love to snag your shoelaces and rake your jeans or bare skin. I’ve seen this common woodland plant growing in sun and shade, on wet and dry ground. It’s very drought hardy. Try digging up the large, warty, woody clod of a root and you’ll see why.
But you can take your revenge on greenbrier ( Smilax bona-nox) in mid-spring (morel hunting time!) by eating the growing tip of each vine. The fresh, new growth is a shiny chartreuse and the old growth is a dull green. The new stem, tendrils and spade-shaped leaves are all edible and delicious while tender. Snap them off where they break easily — about 6 to 12 inches long. Toss one in your mouth, and you’ll think you’re eating a succulent cross between green beans and asparagus. You can boost production by cutting the vines to the ground in winter. Those big roots will push out even tenderer vine to make up for the loss.
Greenbriers were one of the first wild edibles I learned while playing in the woods as a kid in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. We felt pretty adventurous eating smilax tips. We never told our parents, as we were sure they would have made us to stop because they “might be poisonous.” But they are very safe to eat.
Fortunately, most — but not all — poisonous plants warn you off with their bitter taste.
Chefs in Charleston, South Carolina, tend to be a bit more knowledgeable than our parents were and some have acquired a fondness for smilax tips. They sauté greenbriers very quickly with olive oil and garlic to serve as a side dish. They also blanch them in salt water for a few seconds and then serve with vinaigrette for a cold salad. And they’re delicious pickled.
Smilax tips often peak during morel season. I once introduced a group of morel hunters to a big patch of tender smilax, and we spent a good 10 minutes snacking, stashing, talking and “mmmm-ing” before we returned to the hunt. To be honest, I’ve rarely cooked any at home. I’ve usually eaten it fresh before I get out of the woods. Partly for the sheer pleasure, partly for the tiny buzz I get from eating wild food: It makes me feel less like a spectator and more like a part of nature. Frank Hyman learned his craft from foragers in eight states and six countries. He has a degree in horticulture and teaches foraging to chefs, farmers and the myco-curious public. He writes a column for Chickens magazine and is the author of Hentopia:
Create Hassle-Free Habitat for Happy Chickens. Hyman’s next
book, Shroomtopia: Forage Wild Edible Mushrooms without Dying, comes out in the summer of 2021.