We went mushrooming yesterday afternoon at the invitation of Lauri and Jim at their place in the country. They live in an area of woods and ravines and creeks where the wily morel mushroom abounds.
It has been many years since I went mushrooming. My fondest recollection is of a day when I was about 10 and my dad took me mushrooming at the farm of his oldest sister and her husband up in Carroll County, east of Ockley, Ind. We tramped around the woods on their farm and, while I was a miserable failure at finding mushrooms, my dad and my uncle more than made up for it. We returned to the house with a huge haul of morels, which my Aunt Mabel soaked in saltwater, rolled in flour and fried in butter. We ate until we couldn't eat any more and it was fabulous.
Yesterday's haul was less impressive, but we had a great time tramping around the woods and watching Lauri and Jim's two sons romping around like two puppies.
We came home with a couple of handfuls of smallish morels that Maria washed and soaked in salt. Sometime around 11 p.m., we got the munchies and began eyeing the mushrooms. Maria had never prepared morels, but you wouldn't have know it from the final result. Morels have a complex flavor that especially excites the tastebuds on the sides of the tongue near the back. I won't try to describe the taste because I can't think of anything to compare it with.
But it left us wanting more!
Lauri opined that our relatively small haul yesterday was probably because it's a little early in the season.
Good. That means there's more to look forward to this spring!
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