Shrooms-Wisconsin Farm Edition Recipe

It's morel mushroom season in Southern Wisconsin and everyone is out hunting for them. I knew a morel was a type of mushroom but I'd never seen one, so Tom and Cousin Richard were dispatched to the woods to rummage around in the dirt to find some. Cousin Donna hoped to have enough for a morel fiesta that evening for dinner.

The guys tooled around the farm on Richard's Ranger and found all of Richard's deer stands, but no morels. After much discussion, the local experts analyzed the weather and concluded the mushrooms needed more warmth to push through the earth and emerge. To make us feel envious, Ron and Suzie, cousins who live across the road, showed us some photos of a past morel haul in the bed of their pickup truck. The morels were gigantic, like they had been irradiated or injected with growth hormone.

Morels growing in the wild

Eleven year old Jace did a little searching on his own and brought two little guys to the house. Below are the two guys Jace found.

Now let's see if you're thinking what I was thinking: Don't morels look like conehead brains? 

Am I weird thinking this way? I don't think so!

Morels may look like extraterrestrial brains, but everyone who has eaten them rhapsodizes about how great they are. Donna says morels are best rolled in seasoned flour and fried. 


Here's a recipe I found at at a website called The Great Morel submitted by a guy named Jim, another rhapsodic morel fan.

King of the Plate (Morels with Flour)
I can't for the life of me figure why anyone would ruin a perfectly good morel mushroom with saltine crackers!!
You need:
Morels (bunches of 'em)
Butter/Margarine (3-4 tbsp's)
Frying Pan (non-stick is good...iron skillet is better)
Flour (1/2 cup or so)
Salt/Pepper to taste.
Directions:
Melt butter/margarine in frying pan (don't overheat it!!!!!)
Coat Morels in flour (either in gallon ziplock bag that has flour in
it or using a plate covered in flour)--coat the cleaned morels well with
flour.
Sautee mushrooms (gently) in butter/margarine.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Eat.
I have introduced a dozen people to the mighty morel with this tried and true recipe -- which lets the mushroom be king of the plate. All of them have become converts and a few reported a nearly religious experience! Serve the mushrooms with homemade bread (warm) with butter and you have a meal better than any that has ever been served to royalty.
There is no better use of a morel then when it is covered in flour and sauteed in butter and eaten. I wouldn't have them any other way!!!!

I like all the exclamation points. This guy loves his morels.

Maybe if we all had more morels the world would be a better place.