Feral Feast: Feral Feast: Morels & Thistles

from the Apr/May 2016 issue of Paleo Magazine

Mighty Morels: The Finger-Puppet Fungi

The mighty morel mushroom: sought after by chefs, professional mushroom hunters and novice fungus eaters. It’s the very best of the few edible mushrooms that fruit in spring. Not only does it have a meatier texture than most store-bought mushrooms, but it’s relatively easy for novices to learn to safely identify. As the old folks say, “If it’s hollow, you can swallow.”

Morels (Mochella deliciosa, M. esculenta, M. elata) somewhat resemble the outline of a cartoon Christmas tree: a fat stalk and a crinkly, conical cap. If you cut a morel in half from top to bottom, both the stalk and cap have enough of a void that you could almost stick one on every digit like so many finger puppets. The hollow is also big enough to house a few insects—another reason to slice them open before cooking. True, there are a few mushrooms that with some enthusiastic wishful thinking look enough like a morel to earn the name “false morels,” but they are solid inside. If you find those, leave them be. They are either unappetizing or will play havoc with your digestion.

In any event, you don’t want to eat any wild-caught mushroom raw for three reasons. First, they are about as digestible as wood, so there’s no nutritional value in one. Second, a tiny number of people will be mildly allergic to any given mushroom, and more so one that hasn’t been cooked. Third, there’s a tiny chance that on the surface of the mushroom there could be some woodland bacteria that won’t sit well with some people. So be a smart mushroom hunter. Cook morels and everything else you find for at least a few minutes in butter or some other fat, and only eat a small amount of a new species your first time to learn if you’re sensitive.

Morels appear in mid-spring, after the last frost, but before the tree leaves come out. They seem to be triggered by the soil temperature reaching 50 degrees and a rain. Being a good morel hunter means being a good tree hunter. The submerged part of a morel—its inedible, stringy mycelia—grows on forest floors in association mostly with mature tulip poplars, but also elms and among old apple trees in orchards. In the Midwest and Pacific Northwest, morels respond to the previous year’s forest fires with great flushes rising from blackened earth. Unfortunately, Southern morels haven’t learned this trick, making them a bit harder to track down.

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. If you have a surplus, putting them in a dehydrator overnight at about 110 degrees will let you save them in a jar in your cupboard. Rehydrate for a few minutes in warm water before adding to a sauté pan or casserole, or toss them straight into a soup pot.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t find morels on your first foray. Most edible soil-borne mushrooms announce themselves across the forest floor like so many brightly colored periscopes of yellow, orange, red or blue. But morels camouflage themselves quite well. They wear the brownish grays of fallen leaves, with their outline broken up by the shadowy craters in their caps. My technique for finding morels? Like the commander of a luckless sub-chaser, I often stop in disappointment and disgust at being empty-handed even though I’m standing amongst massive tulip poplars. Then I look down at my feet. Half the time, I’m standing in the middle of an under-the-radar fleet of 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 the way home.

Foraging for Foragers

The safest and quickest way to learn some of the iffy mushrooms and wild plants is from experts. At eattheweeds.com/foraging/foraging-instructors/, Green Deane curates a list of experts all over the country. (If you are an expert and want to be listed, contact Deane directly.) You can also search on Facebook or Meetup.com for mushroom hunters and wild-, edible-plant foragers in your state or region.

This’ll Taste Like Thistle

There are few farm or garden weeds more hated than bull thistles (Cirsium vulgare). And for good reason. As with all thistles, the leaves are very prickly. The roots run deep, making them hard to pull. The seeds float like dandelion fluff and will launch their next generation into every downwind plant bed. Thistle is so hated that it’s considered an indicator of a poorly managed farm. But I now love them. Not for the flower bud and roots, which are fair edibles, or the leaves’ midribs, which when young are a good green for sautéing (after you strip away the prickles). For me, the best part is the stalk. At its prime, you’ll enjoy the sweet taste and juicy texture of honeydew melon.

Catch a bull, or most any, thistle in mid-spring, after some good rain when the stalk is still young and the flowers have not yet formed or have only just started opening. Find a non-prickly spot on the stalk to hold with thumb and forefinger. (Those living a callus-free lifestyle may want to don leather gloves.) With your pocketknife, cut off the stalk at the base and slice off each of the leaves and flower buds where they meet the stalk. Some people prefer to hold the stalk upside down for this, and some use a machete. You’ll be left with a 1- to 2-foot-long stalk that’s an inch or less in diameter. With your knife, shave or peel off the fibrous outer skin of the stalk. Yes, I know it sounds like a lot of work so far, but I wouldn’t be telling you about this one if it weren’t well worth it.

With the leaves, flower buds and outer skin gone, you’ll be left with a bright green, moist, hollow tube of edible vegetable. I’ve eaten them raw at their prime with great joy. If you catch them a little late or when the season is dry, they might have the less sweet flavor of a cucumber. Depending on where your thistle harvest lands on the spectrum of maturity, it may warrant a sauté in butter to enhance flavor and texture. Either way, after your first good meal of thistle stalks, you’ll want to befriend bad farmers.

Other wild edibles found in mid-spring:

ramps, smilax vine tips, black locust flowers, stinging nettles, trout lilies, dandelions, wild onions, prickly pear pads, basswood leaves, pokeweed shoots, knotweed shoots, giant Solomon’s Seal shoots, Mayapple fruits.

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