Ask Mel Watkins if he’s a morel mushroom junkie and he responds, “Absolutely!”
Watkins, of Porter, has been eagerly awaiting spring each year for the past 50 years so he can forage the nearby forests for coveted treasure—the morel mushroom.
“I’ve loved them ever since I was a kid. They are probably in the top two things I’ve ever tasted in my life along with steak,” he said.
But for Watkins, and plenty of others who wish for a wet spring, search for the right combination of debris and ground cover, and keep their secret locations locked in their minds like a pirate with his booty, the appeal is much more than just the taste of the delicate fungi.
“I love to hunt them. Sometimes there’s a lot of tact in it, if you know what trees to look under and what kind of tree you’re looking for,” he said. “A dying elm tree is one of the key trees I find them under. It has to be in the right soil and it has to be a moist area. The ash borer is killing these ash trees and I used to find them under live ash trees and now we find them under dying ash trees.”
Watkins said that the season for morel mushrooms begins in late April or early May and come June, the window for finding the little beauties is pretty much closed.
“They are beautiful mushrooms. They look like a sponge Christmas tree. As the season begins they will be black and they go to a grey stage and they get meatier, a lot heavier, and then they go to yellow, a bigger mushrooms, but not as meaty as the greys,” he said. “They will get 8 to 10 inches tall sometimes, two inches across, but those are rare and late in the season, and if it’s dry you don’t find as many. There’s a science to it.”
Over the decades, Watkins has found his own method of locating morels that involves looking under brush and trees on certain sides of a slope during certain times of the season, and like a fisherman with a story about the big catch, Watkins, too, has his share of stories.
“I’ve found over 1,000 in a season just about every year,” he said. “One year I found 900 under one tree. I left 40 of them for my grandkids to find so they will see what they look like and how they grow.”
He hopes to pass the hobby along to the branches of his family tree.
Perhaps the most fun for those in Watkins’ family comes when it’s time to enjoy the spoils of the search
“Everyone loves to eat them. When it’s time to cook them, oooh, we’re ready! We put them in egg and flour or crushed saltine crackers and fry them in olive oil or butter and they’re awesome. We keep some in the freezer to eat all year long,” he said.
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Get certified
For those who like to forage for morel mushrooms, or those who like to eat or cook with them, the Hoosier Mushroom Society, in conjunction with the Purdue Extension and the Indiana Department of Health, has announced dates for 2015 Morel Mushroom Certification Courses which will allow individuals, chefs, business owners, and others with an interest in selling wild mushroom in Indiana to become certified in the proper identification and food handling requirements for select species.
For more information on the courses, visit hoosiermushrooms.org.