• The Holy Grail of mushroom lovers everywhere, morels (Morchella angusticeps) entice mushroom hunters with their mysterious growing habits and delectable taste. The gourmet delicacies have spawned countless hunting clubs in the parts of the world where morels grow. Difficult to grow commercially or in the home garden, morels appear for only a few weeks every year, often in woodland patches whose locations are jealously guarded by dedicated morel lovers.
  
  

Description

• The entire plant measures up to 20 centimeters tall. Morels' deeply ridged, conical-shaped caps make them relatively easy to recognize. The cap is usually golden to dark brown, with a creamy white or yellow hollow stem. When the morels are ripe, the ridges turn dark. The mushrooms grow throughout much of North America and other temperate regions.
  
  

Morel Hunting

• While morels can be grown in a home patch, their fruiting rates are notoriously poor compared with the more easily-cultivated shiitakes, oysters, and button mushrooms. For this reason, mushroom hunters eagerly await morel season, which occurs anywhere from April to July. Fans post morel sightings on Internet message boards and arrange elaborate hunting parties. In general, morels flourish in woodland floors, not on trees. They also tend to colonize burn sites after forest fires.
  
  According to The Great Morel, a website devoted to stalking the wild morel, hunters have good luck finding morels under "dead or dying elms, old apple orchards, old ash, poplar trees [and] pines." The website also dubs the Great Lakes region a "hot bed" of morel growth, based on anecdotal evidence. Consider joining a hunting group if you'd like to search in the wild. A few non-edible, even toxic, morel look-alikes exist, and experienced morel hunters can help you tell the difference between the false and true morels.
  
  

Nutrition and Cooking

• You won't find morels included in a list of "nutritional powerhouse" mushrooms such as shiitakes and portobellos. Nor are they revered for their medicinal properties, as are reishis and cordyceps. Morels are comprised of about 64 percent carbohydrates, 20 percent protein, 9 percent fiber, and 5 percent fat.
  
  Use morels as a special substitute for any recipe calling for button mushrooms. Morels boast a special reputation for pairing beautifully with cream in French sauces.
  
  

Adaptability

• Experienced morel hunters know to look for recent burn sites when hunting the elusive mushroom. Expert Paul Stamets notes that morels are among the first organisms to appear in the soil after a fire, whether a large-scale forest blaze or a campfire. Stamets uses this tendency when cultivating his own morels by creating a bonfire pit 4 to 10 feet in diameter. Once the ground cools, he mixes 5 pounds morel sawdust spawn into the embers, careful to keep about 2 inches of burned earth on top of the spawn.
  
  

Cultivation

• Start your own morel patch in late summer to early fall. If your site doesn't provide enough shade in the early spring--common in deciduous forests which may not leaf out in time to protect the morels--cover the site with shade cloth about two months before the expected fruiting.
  
  

Cautions

• According to Stamets, morels contain toxins called hydrazines which evaporate in cooking. The mushrooms, therefore, should not be eaten raw. He also advises cooks to prepare morels in well-ventilated kitchens. Stand well away from the fumes of morels, which release these toxins as they cook. Partially-cooked morels, as well as their volatile cooking vapors, don't provoke strong physical reactions, but it's best to exercise caution.
  
  Consult books and experts to learn the difference between true morels and their non-edible look-alikes.