Burn Morels

Every spring under the right conditions, thousands of morel mushrooms carpet charred forest floors West of the Rockies. This e-book will teach you how to use our curated maps to locate ideal morel burn sites. You'll find an overview of elevation, forest types, accessibility, necessary permits, lands where you can and cannot hunt, natural indicators, portable technology and much more. With the proper information you can become a pro at finding them!

"Whether you get your mushrooms from the supermarket or the forest floor, a worthy addition to your library." —Star Tribune Get ready to fall in love with wild mushrooms! Absolutely everything you need to know to make mushrooming a lifestyle choice, from finding, storing, preserving, and preparing common and unusual species. Packed with content and lore from more than 20 skilled foragers around the country, Wild Mushrooms will help mushroom hunters successfully utilize their harvest, and includes practical information on transporting, cleaning, and preserving their finds. One of the best things about cooking wild mushrooms is that every time you open your dried caches, their unique aroma recalls your foraging experience creating an immediate and visceral connection back to the forest. There is no finer way to appreciate food. You will not only learn the best ways to locate, clean, collect, and preserve your mushrooms from the experts, the book will also discuss safety and edibility, preservation techniques, mushroom sections and flavor profiles, and more. Recipes will be categorized by mushroom species, with 115 recipes in total. Recipes include:​ Smoked Marinated Wild Mushrooms Black Trumpet, Blood Orange, and Beet Salad Maitake Beef Stew Candy Cap and Walnut Scones Baked Brie with Chanterelle Jam Porcini with Braised Pork Medallions Yellowfoot Mushroom Tart And more! From pickling to rich duxelles, soups, salads, and even mushroom teas, tinctures, jams, and ice cream, these recipes and invaluable insider tips will delight everyone from the most discerning mycophiles to brand new fungus fanatics.

Morels are prized edible mushrooms that fruit, sometimes prolifically, in many forest types throughout western North America. They are collected for personal consumption and commercially harvested as valuable special (nontimber) forest products. Large gaps remain, however, in our knowledge about their taxonomy, biology, ecology, cultivation, safety, and how to manage forests and harvesting activities to conserve morel populations and ensure sustainable crops. This publication provides forest managers, policymakers, mycologists, and mushroom harvesters with a synthesis of current knowledge regarding these issues, regional summaries of morel harvesting and management, and a comprehensive review of the literature.

A comprehensive, accessible book for both amateur morel hunters and mushroom scientists about one of North America's most popular outdoor activities

This exploratory study examined aspects of the social organization of the commercial wild morel industry in western Montana during 2001. We talked with 18 key informants (7 buyers and 11 pickers) and observed social interactions at one buying station near the Kootenai National Forest and three buying stations near the Bitterroot National Forest. The key informant and observational data permitted us to construct a picture of social interactions at field buying stations, buyer strategies for attracting pickers, changes in prices over the course of a season, and the ways in which various participants in the wild morel harvest construct their livelihoods. In the discussion, we contrast our findings with the results of a recently published study on nontimber forest product harvesters in the Eastern United States. We end the report with a discussion of management implications for managers and scientists.

“A beautifully written portrait of the people who collect and distribute wild mushrooms . . . food and nature writing at its finest.”—Eugenia Bone, author of Mycophilia “A rollicking narrative . . . Cook [delivers] vivid and cinematic scenes on every page.”—The Wall Street Journal In the dark corners of America’s forests grow culinary treasures. Chefs pay top dollar to showcase these elusive and enchanting ingredients on their menus. Whether dressing up a filet mignon with smoky morels or shaving luxurious white truffles over pasta, the most elegant restaurants across the country now feature one of nature’s last truly wild foods: the uncultivated, uncontrollable mushroom. The mushroom hunters, by contrast, are a rough lot. They live in the wilderness and move with the seasons. Motivated by Gold Rush desires, they haul improbable quantities of fungi from the woods for cash. Langdon Cook embeds himself in this shadowy subculture, reporting from both rural fringes and big-city eateries with the flair of a novelist, uncovering along the way what might be the last gasp of frontier-style capitalism. Meet Doug, an ex-logger and crabber—now an itinerant mushroom picker trying to pay his bills and stay out of trouble; Jeremy, a former cook turned wild-food entrepreneur, crisscrossing the continent to build a business amid cutthroat competition; their friend Matt, an up-and-coming chef whose kitchen alchemy is turning heads; and the woman who inspires them all. Rich with the science and lore of edible fungi—from seductive chanterelles to exotic porcini—The Mushroom Hunters is equal parts gonzo travelogue and culinary history lesson, a fast-paced, character-driven tour through a world that is by turns secretive, dangerous, and quintessentially American.

The morels is one of the most delicious and costliest wild edible mushrooms of the world. During the last century significant advances have been made in the study of morel biology with the sole aim of artificial cultivation. But all efforts to domesticate them have not been wholly fruitful. The book is an attempt to compile all the relevant information on morel biology so that more interest in morel research is stimulated ultimately paving the way for cultivation. The monograph contains 14 chapters; each chapter is devoted to and provides original information and observations on various aspects of morel biology. It begins with an overview of morel biology followed by the life cycle pattern, classical and molecular systematic treatment, ecology, physiology, mycorrhizal and rhizomorphospheric relationships, nutritive and nutraceutical profile, observations and ethno-mycological and sociobiological impact, cytology of ascus development and the culinary aspects of morel consumption. The objective is to offer a detailed account of different aspects of morel biology and biodiversity. All the chapters are documented with tables, figures and original color photographs.