Foraging for Morels

On Sunday I was down in Nebraska City to see my families for Easter. I was talking with my Dad who has always taken me out to hunt for morels for as long as I can remember about how people were finding morels early this year since the weather has been so nice. My Dad said he wasn't going to get many chances to go out and look for some since he and my Mom were heading off on a trip later in the week. So after talking about it for a few minutes we decided to head out to a place that he nows that is 2 minutes outside of town that he has been able to find some at in the past.

When we got out to the spot we headed into the timber and walked for about 10 minutes and weren't having much luck and were starting to get a little worried when my Dad who has a way better eye for finding them than I do finally found the first one.

the first one

After finding the first one we started to find several small little patches of about 4 or 5 at a time. As we kept walking we just kept finding more and more small patches of them. The walking was pretty rough for me since I was not prepared to go foraging. I was dressed in shorts and flip flops but it was definetly worth it.

my haul part way through

In the end I ended up finding almost a pound and my Dad found a pound and a half. Not to bad since we were only out for a little over an hour and only walked about a mile and half. Last season we were out for several hours and walked a lot more and only found about the same amount.

I think morels are one of my favorite foods. There is something that makes them special. Maybe it is the fact that we can only get/find them here fresh in Nebraska for only a few weeks a year or maybe it was always a special thing to go out and hunt them with my Dad and then go out to my Grandma's the next day where she would fry them and we would feast until our stomachs hurt.

All in all the most important thing to me is that they just plain taste amazing. All in all I hope that I will have a chance to get out and try to find some more or I'll have to just be patient until next year when I get the chance to go out and find some more.

Beer drank while writing this post: 1554 by New Belgium Brewing Co. out of Fort Collins, CO.