I remember the day I first heard about morel mushrooms. While waiting for that year’s St. Cloud Technical & Community College graduation ceremonies to begin I struck up a conversation with a fellow professor. It was the Friday before Mother’s Day and he said he was going hunting for morels that weekend as it was the time of year when they usually start to appear.

Although I’m a picky eater, I’ll try any food before I place judgment. I’d never eaten morels but as I like the white mushrooms sold in stores I thought why not? It was going to be a beautiful weekend and tromping through the woods would be a fun way to spend it.

My husband was intrigued and we determined the best place to start our hunt was the woods at the back of our property. I’ve heard people search for years without finding any, but that year luck was on our side. It didn’t take us long to find the first one, then another, and another, and we soon had filled our bags.

I’d never picked and eaten wild mushrooms because I was always worried I’d poison myself, but morels have a very distinctive look, basically like an elongated brain. The cap is attached to the stem, not hanging from the top, and they’re completely hollow if you slice them from top to bottom.

We took our morel haul home, fried some with butter, and ate them on top of medium rare steaks. I don’t normally like anything but seasoning touching my food, but this combination turned out to be a winner. Morels have a meaty flavor and pair perfectly with steak.

After that first year, I was hooked. Not only were morels delicious to eat they were also fun to hunt for. We’ve gone out every year after to varying degrees of luck.

A few years ago we even started to find them growing along the slough in our backyard. 

Unfortunately, with the cold, dry weather of the last three years, we’ve had little luck on our hunts, so I was excited to try again this year. Sure enough, we found more morels in our backyard than we ever have before. Heading out to our woods this past weekend we found a few just peeking up, so we’ll be heading back out in a few days. Wish us luck!