Hazekiah
05-12-2013, 01:04 AM
Anyone here have any experience with this stuff?
Even though I was raised as an Army brat and played in the woods a lot in addition to being in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts till high school, I was always more of a Big City guy...so I'm pretty much a n00b in this field. But my family owns a farm with about a hundred acres of woods in the middle of it and it's colloquially known to the locals as The Wet Acres, since it occupies the low-lying land of the county. So when I heard some of my more Country Mouse pals were all out looking everywhere for morel mushrooms recently I invited a couple to go inspect my family's woods with me to see what we could find. Didn't really expect much, though. I'm usually bored out of my mind at my family's place so I just figured it'd be a good chance to get some buddies to come hang out and drink in the woods, really.
I had no idea I was basically sitting on a fucking treasure trove goldmine of the goddamned things!
My pals were all freaking out the whole time and excitedly trying to convey to me that there are mushroom-hunters who spend their whole lives looking for the kind of numbers and quality we were finding out there. I was just glad to have the company and figured they'd go to waste anyway, so whatever. We all just pooled our finds together at the end of the day and divided them evenly so we all got a fair deal out of it. But now I'm starting to feel bad about my haul because I didn't really know what I was doing with them and wound up wasting a bunch.
I've since done some research and dug around online a little bit, and it looks like one of the best and easiest ways to preserve/prepare them is to rinse and clean them with cold saltwater and then batter, bread, and season them. They'll apparently last for years like that in a freezer and then taste just as fresh as the day they were picked when you finally get around to frying them.
But that kind of sucks for all the same reasons breading and frying anything sucks. Plus, it's just deep-fried whatever...it barely even registers as tasting like a mushroom at that point.
And purists say to just sauté them in butter. But, again, that just basically makes them taste like butter and I'm not trying to have a coronary over the things, ffs. I still haven't tried using olive oil instead, but I'd imagine it's probably a lot better in those respects. We'll see.
Anyway, they grow for about two weeks a year and we're about halfway through that timeframe now. The older ones we're just finding now are practically rotting in the ground and crumble away when we try to pick them, so we've started going back over the ground we've already covered and there's a BUNCH of super-fresh and firm morels popping up there again, so I figure we've got about another week of finding good stuff before we're done for the year.
It's basically a race against time. And all the deer and other wildlife that seem to be munching on them while we're not looking, of course. I guess this probably isn't the best place to look for help, but I wondered if anyone here might be able to pass along some tips for finding them, preserving them, and preparing them to eat.
There's a LOT of conflicting data online so hopefully someone can share some good firsthand experience here.
I read a lot about looking by fallen trees, but so far I'm having much better luck near standing elm trees, actually. Not sure why, but that seems to be where they're the hugest and most plentiful. Well, out in the open, anyway. Looking in the tall grass and weeds and under the thicker, thornier rose bushes has served me well, too...which makes lots of sense. And I've already covered most of what I've done with cooking them so far.
But I'm sure there's still TONS more left out there and I have a shitload I've already picked that I'm still trying to figure out the best ways to preserve and eat, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
For that matter, I'm curious if anyone knows someplace good to sell some. I've heard of restaurants and grocery stores and taverns buying them for anywhere from 20 to 70 bucks a pound, and since my friends and I already have more than we can handle I definitely wouldn't mind making a couple bucks on the leftovers. I could certainly think of less enjoyable ways to pay down my credit card and finance my Manson and NIN roadtrips!
So there it is.
Any ideas?
In the meantime, I have a couple pix my pal took. These are all from our first day and each pic is just 1/3rd of our haul from ONE day. It's pretty ridiculous out there, lol...we've been at it for a week now and we find at least this much each day. Collectively, the three of us have found almost a hundred pounds altogether in the last week, and that's just on one plot of land and only looking for about two or three hours a day. And there's still sooooo much more land there that we haven't covered yet, so I'm just trying to make the most of it while I can.
Doing pretty well for a n00b so far, though!
O_O
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/317098_441938282566420_1370762459_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/946431_441938679233047_62050214_n.jpg
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/247075_441938549233060_1723548088_n.jpg
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/941157_441938425899739_957779332_n.jpg
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/934613_442728502487398_1400820510_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/420625_441938292566419_1101486555_n.jpg
Even though I was raised as an Army brat and played in the woods a lot in addition to being in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts till high school, I was always more of a Big City guy...so I'm pretty much a n00b in this field. But my family owns a farm with about a hundred acres of woods in the middle of it and it's colloquially known to the locals as The Wet Acres, since it occupies the low-lying land of the county. So when I heard some of my more Country Mouse pals were all out looking everywhere for morel mushrooms recently I invited a couple to go inspect my family's woods with me to see what we could find. Didn't really expect much, though. I'm usually bored out of my mind at my family's place so I just figured it'd be a good chance to get some buddies to come hang out and drink in the woods, really.
I had no idea I was basically sitting on a fucking treasure trove goldmine of the goddamned things!
My pals were all freaking out the whole time and excitedly trying to convey to me that there are mushroom-hunters who spend their whole lives looking for the kind of numbers and quality we were finding out there. I was just glad to have the company and figured they'd go to waste anyway, so whatever. We all just pooled our finds together at the end of the day and divided them evenly so we all got a fair deal out of it. But now I'm starting to feel bad about my haul because I didn't really know what I was doing with them and wound up wasting a bunch.
I've since done some research and dug around online a little bit, and it looks like one of the best and easiest ways to preserve/prepare them is to rinse and clean them with cold saltwater and then batter, bread, and season them. They'll apparently last for years like that in a freezer and then taste just as fresh as the day they were picked when you finally get around to frying them.
But that kind of sucks for all the same reasons breading and frying anything sucks. Plus, it's just deep-fried whatever...it barely even registers as tasting like a mushroom at that point.
And purists say to just sauté them in butter. But, again, that just basically makes them taste like butter and I'm not trying to have a coronary over the things, ffs. I still haven't tried using olive oil instead, but I'd imagine it's probably a lot better in those respects. We'll see.
Anyway, they grow for about two weeks a year and we're about halfway through that timeframe now. The older ones we're just finding now are practically rotting in the ground and crumble away when we try to pick them, so we've started going back over the ground we've already covered and there's a BUNCH of super-fresh and firm morels popping up there again, so I figure we've got about another week of finding good stuff before we're done for the year.
It's basically a race against time. And all the deer and other wildlife that seem to be munching on them while we're not looking, of course. I guess this probably isn't the best place to look for help, but I wondered if anyone here might be able to pass along some tips for finding them, preserving them, and preparing them to eat.
There's a LOT of conflicting data online so hopefully someone can share some good firsthand experience here.
I read a lot about looking by fallen trees, but so far I'm having much better luck near standing elm trees, actually. Not sure why, but that seems to be where they're the hugest and most plentiful. Well, out in the open, anyway. Looking in the tall grass and weeds and under the thicker, thornier rose bushes has served me well, too...which makes lots of sense. And I've already covered most of what I've done with cooking them so far.
But I'm sure there's still TONS more left out there and I have a shitload I've already picked that I'm still trying to figure out the best ways to preserve and eat, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
For that matter, I'm curious if anyone knows someplace good to sell some. I've heard of restaurants and grocery stores and taverns buying them for anywhere from 20 to 70 bucks a pound, and since my friends and I already have more than we can handle I definitely wouldn't mind making a couple bucks on the leftovers. I could certainly think of less enjoyable ways to pay down my credit card and finance my Manson and NIN roadtrips!
So there it is.
Any ideas?
In the meantime, I have a couple pix my pal took. These are all from our first day and each pic is just 1/3rd of our haul from ONE day. It's pretty ridiculous out there, lol...we've been at it for a week now and we find at least this much each day. Collectively, the three of us have found almost a hundred pounds altogether in the last week, and that's just on one plot of land and only looking for about two or three hours a day. And there's still sooooo much more land there that we haven't covered yet, so I'm just trying to make the most of it while I can.
Doing pretty well for a n00b so far, though!
O_O
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/317098_441938282566420_1370762459_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/946431_441938679233047_62050214_n.jpg
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/247075_441938549233060_1723548088_n.jpg
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/941157_441938425899739_957779332_n.jpg
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/934613_442728502487398_1400820510_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/420625_441938292566419_1101486555_n.jpg