morel, 2024

[bluthum]

Found one tiny little morel today in NC AR, first of the season. It's always exciting to find the first one, a relief that they still are out there. I expect it'll be a few days before they flush to amount to anything but the season is open in my neck o the woods. Let the games begin.

[thecfarm]

In this area it's fiddle heads. 

[SwampDonkey]

Yep, fiddleheads are the thing up here to. The first time I heard wild mushrooming was a thing was on the west coast 30 years ago. In the store it is all farmed mushrooms. But out there they bought and sold mushrooms roadside, it was big business. They have some pricey mushrooms out there. All winter I was walking a section of trail where I see old ostrich fern spore fronds from last year. We pick the non spore fronds before they uncurl. Never noticed them there before. Hmmm. 

[bluthum]

I suppose the fiddle head thing is a sort of a cult endeavor similar to the morel cult which thrives in many areas of the country. Count me in the morel cult, once I developed the taste it became a serious passion. I see people selling them for $20 # and way more, in my world they are too scarce to be much of a commercial item but some places they are abundant enough to be a serious source of income. I ain selling mine.

I've never eaten a fiddle head, the several species of ferns hereabouts have nice looking fiddle heads but I think them inferior to ostrich fern, big time. It's not a thing locally.

Another thing we don't have here is ramps, they seem to have a cult following as well where they thrive. Never tasted them either.

[Chuck White]

I was thinking that ramps/leeks grew everywhere except the deserts and other arid areas!

We have them here, on most any chunk of land you would want to check.

In less than a month they'll start popping up in this area!

[SwampDonkey]

Leek is listed as a wild herb native to here, but I have never seen it ever around here. If we have it, it must be in southern NB. The best NB farm soils are up around me, but have never seen leek. We get Indian hellebore, but that is poisonous.

Ostrich fern only grows in certain soil up here. Mainly tributaries of the Saint John and the main river itself. The Tobique river, a tributary,  is famous for bigger ones and they are later to come up.

[Magicman]

I have no idea whether we have what is called leeks, but we do have what we call wild onions. ??

[SwampDonkey]

What I call wild leek is Allium tricoccum

Wild Leek

[Peter Drouin]

How do you cook them, Swamp Donkey?

[Chuck White]

SD, that's what we get here in the Spring, they get a bulb on them, just like an onion!

When they're rather small, we eat the bulb on a sandwich of bread and butter, and a touch of salt, after eating them, you will find that people will avoid you because of your breath.  Kids used to get kicked out of school because of their breath.

When they get bigger, about thumb size we use them in spaghetti sauce, and mix them in when frying potatoes.

Some people will can them, but I haven't got a good recipe for that where they're crisp and tasty, so I put some in vacuum bags, in the freezer for cooking later on! 

[SwampDonkey]

Little round ones would probably be good in pickles or bigger ones in relish maybe. Nobody here ever was bothered by onion breath. Although dad was no fan of onions. I always like pepper and onions on rice or mixed in with fried cabbage.  Had a big onion fried up with butter and garlic with my oyster Rockefeller yesterday, make that once or twice a winter. Simple to make. Uses fresh spinach as well as taters. I can eat the whole casserole dish.