Dry Land Fish AKA Morrel Mushrooms

Spent a couple of hours this morning looking for morrels. Found just enough to scramble in my eggs in the morning. I probably walked off 200-300 calories finding them so I'll end up on the negative side as far as nutritional value goes but the flavor they give to the scrambled eggs is well worth it.

When I was a teenager, my Uncle Bob (Mom's youngest brother) took me under his wing and taught me how to fish, find ginseng, and look for dry land fish. The secret to finding ginseng and dry land fish was getting your eye fixed right. You didn't look for a ginseng plant or morrel mushroom rather you scanned the area about 4-5 yards around you and if you had your eye fixed right the ginseng or morrel would jump out at you almost like a close-up shot on a tv program. It really works but I always thought that Uncle Bob had his eye fixed better than I did because he would always say something like..."If you'll move your foot, I'll dig that ginseng plant you're standing on".

You find morrels in the early spring mostly around popular and apple trees. After a rainy day and a warm spring night they will almost jump out of the ground.

I usually fix them several different ways. I always rinse them off, split them, and soak them in salt water for a few hours to make sure that they don't have any little creepy-crawley things inside them. You can dip them in egg batter and roll them in flour and fry to a golden brown or you can saute' them in butter over a medium heat or you can dry them and use the crumblies to flavor different dishes.