Among the fungi

Morel hunting and elk hunting have a lot in common. Both pursuits take place in the mountains, often in places that are inconvenient to access. Both require enormous effort and can take a toll on our bodies, clothing, relationships and anything else of value. But we do it anyway.

We do it because both morel and meat hunting offer edible rewards of the highest quality if you succeed, but success depends on reading the landscape. It helps to not become lost, run out of water or get trampled by a moose. Even if you don’t succeed in bagging your prey, all you have to do is survive in order to experience some amazing moments and walk away stronger.

Whatever your prey, you find it by locating its habitat. Elk tend to prefer being as far away as possible from where humans might be. Meanwhile, the best morel habitat is a burnt-out forest the year after the fire.

We don’t know how or why morels appear after a fire. Wilderness-related industries don’t attract much research money. Much of the knowledge of morel ecology is held by the pickers themselves, who are not always inclined to share what they know.

When two pickers bump into each other in the woods, it can be an awkward, mutually disappointing encounter. They both have the right to be there, but each nonetheless feels protective of their spot. Violence is not unheard of.

Unlike elk or deer, morels have stubbornly refused all efforts of domestication. This means every single morel you’ve ever eaten was hunted and harvested by hand in the wild.

I’ve gone after these freaky, fungal fruits, plodding up and down the burned mountainsides of Montana, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska. Morel habitats are treacherous. Dead tree limbs called widowmakers lie in wait, needing very little provocation to fall on your head, while the charred stumps of burnt saplings can poke through your boots.

On a recent picking trip, one novel danger was the bark on downed lodgepole pines. It looked grippy, and I often wanted to step on it, either to get over an obstacle or to walk along the downed tree like a boardwalk. But weeks of rain had turned that bark into a banana peel, ready to slide out from under me as soon as I put weight on it.

That particular day was more of a guided hunt. A friend had been scouting the burn site for a few weeks, waiting for the right combination of soil moisture and temperature to converge. My buddy even drove and didn’t make me wear a blindfold. But a guided hunt is still hunting. You still have to find your prey.

I wasn’t doing particularly well. I had maybe a quart of mushrooms when I ran into some pickers who were on the way out, loaded with fungus. They were friendly but wary when I asked where they were from. It turns out they were Mexican and didn’t want any trouble. They were also tired, hungry and thirsty.

I had put my backpack down a few hundred yards below us, and I was just carrying my bucket and bear spray. I told them where my pack was and invited them to help themselves to food and water. When I got back to my pack, an elk sandwich was gone. But my pail had an extra two gallons of morels.

I took the mushrooms home and cooked them in a sherry-cream sauce. I served them alongside some whitetail steak and washed it all down with red wine. It was the kind of meal only a hunter gets to enjoy.

Morels in sherry-cream sauce

If you don’t have — or can’t afford — a lot of morels, one trick is to add button mushrooms to the recipe. They  will stretch out the morels without diluting the flavor. If you’re using dried morels, cover a cup of them with 1/2 cup of hot chicken broth and let them sit for an hour, covered, to rehydrate.

• 2 cups fresh morels or 1 cup dried
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, minced
• 1/2 cup dry sherry
• Zest and juice of 1/4 lemon
• Heavy pinch of nutmeg
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup heavy cream
• Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom pan. Add the onion and mushrooms. Cook together until the onions are translucent and the morels give up their moisture, about 10 minutes.

Add the sherry and let it cook off. Add the nutmeg, lemon zest and juice. Stir the mixture around and let it cook for a moment, then add the cream. Cook for five more minutes, season with salt and pepper and serve.