By Rochelle McCracken
As we crave a more familiar time when we could go into a restaurant and sit down to a dinner enjoying one of our favorite dishes, topped with the herbs and seasonings that make our mouth water, we are confined to home. Out of necessity we have become chefs and teachers and are mostly confined to home – or the spaces nearby. Those nearby spaces are the perfect place to find some of the delicacies that we are missing out on, such as morel mushrooms and ramps.
The morel, or Morchella, is amongst the most desired wild mushrooms and can’t normally be found in a store. It’s wildly popular for cooking and it’s one of the most the common mushroom hunted by foragers. Morels can vary wildly in their appearance – their colors range from light to dark, their size can be tiny or huge. But the one similarity they all have is the honeycombed exterior. Inside, the morel is hollow from the cap and through the stem; this is an important distinguishing factor and one of the easiest ways to tell a morel apart from a false morel.
Southwestern Pennsylvania has many mushroom hunters; these self-taught mycologists (mushroom scientists) and budding chefs possess an in-depth knowledge of our forests’ edibles. They also have unbridled enthusiasm for the great outdoors and what nature has to offer. These foragers are happy to share words of wisdom and suggestions with our readers.
Jared White is a butcher and owner at Heritage Craft Butchers. He hails from the Washington, PA area and got his start with mushroom picking as a photographer roaming the woods. What started as hobby soon grew into a passion and became a way of life for him. He became very active in pursuing as much knowledge as possible. Self-taught through the internet, joining groups on Facebook and seeking the knowledge found in books like Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora, Jared describes himself as an amateur mycologist. He enjoys the hunt for known and unusual mushrooms as well as other forest edibles. He likens it to an adult scavenger hunt, a sort of “Pokemon Go for adults.” He encourages anyone interested in searching for forest edibles, especially mushrooms, to use the Internet, and join groups like the Western PA Mushroom Club to learn to properly identify what to pick before eating. According to Jared, “you want to identify a plant several times before eating it.”
Dianne Nicholson is a Bethel Park resident that spends her summers in Greene County around Rices Landing. She credits her husband for getting her interested in the outdoors and what it has to offer. Her husband grew up in Carmichaels and he’s enjoyed hiking the woods since he was a child. They met while in high school and when Dianne was tasked with creating a wildflower book for a school project, her husband was her source for collecting and identifying the book’s contents. Dianne became more involved with the forest and what it has to offer through their walks and the life they built together.
Through the years she found herself involved with the local Town and Country Garden Club and served as President for many of those years. She says, “Sharing knowledge with others having the same interests was a very rewarding way to learn about many of plants, especially the plants you cook with, like mushrooms.” Her favorite recipe with mushrooms, especially the morel, is to fry them with onions and scrambled eggs. It’s a family favorite dish.
Dianne often wishes more families would turn to the outdoors like we used to in our grandparents and great-grandparents time. In those times we sought many plants in nature for not only food but also medicinal purposes. She recalls as a child of stories that were told of her grandparents’ use of medicinal plants but the knowledge of what they were and how they were used was not. She believes, “It is invaluable knowledge that has been lost through the generations.” Her words of wisdom, especially in the times we are facing, “For heaven’s sake, get out of your house and walk in the woods. It is a great source of healing”.
Gabby Duritsky and her husband are the outdoors type many of us grew up with in our families and as neighbors. Her husband has been a hunter and trapper since his childhood days. As a couple they hunt together and forage the woods for many plants they cook and eat. Gabby is a construction inspector that has her working and spending most of her days outdoors. Through her husband, looking to the internet for information, belonging to the PA Morel Mushroom Hunters group, and talking with others, she has become a self-taught mycologist. The knowledge she gained over the years has helped her develop this favorite way to prepare the morel mushroom. She cleans them in salt water, let’s them dry, then batters them in flour and, finally, freezes them. When the time is right, she sautés the morels in butter, onions, and Montréal seasoning. One of her favorite forest plants to fry is the fiddlehead. Fiddleheads are the furled fronds of young ferns and are one of the earliest edibles each year that you can forage from the woods.
While the fiddlehead is not a specific variety of fern and only a term for how ferns look as they grow, the fiddleheads of certain ferns are harvested as vegetables. In Pennsylvania, the favored fiddlehead is the ostrich fern, known for its delicate flavor and crunch texture; it is said to taste like a mix of spinach, broccoli, and asparagus. When harvesting fiddleheads, make sure to only harvest about three from each plant – leave the rest so that the plant will be able to grow. Foragers need to carefully identify the fiddleheads of the ostrich fern or other edible ferns – many other fiddleheads are inedible and can make you sick.
Scott Dillion owns a tree business. Scott’s passion for the outdoors and collecting mushrooms is evident. He grew up in the country, doing everything country boys do. He hunts, fishes, roams the forests, and absolutely loves the outdoors. He is constantly taking pictures, picking the forest’s mushrooms and plants, and sharing the crops he harvests with everyone. To quote Scott, “I just love to give them away.”
There is so much to gain from knowing our local flora and fauna. Our natural world can provide nourishment for our bodies and souls. There is a world out there that should be cherished and enjoyed – and some people truly do. It is also a world still waiting to be discovered for others. So, get outside and discover the natural world!