Appalachian History

'Hickory chickens,' or 'dry land fish,' don't have anything to do with chicken, fish or hickory. They are morel mushrooms and they’re in season right about now. Look for 3 varieties throughout Appalachia: morchella esculenta, which can be found under old apple or pear trees when the oak leaves are about mouse-ear size; morchella angusticeps ('fat morel'), which can be found under oak, beech or maple forests, when the serviceberry is in bloom; and morchella crassipes, found on swampy ground near jewelweed.

All favor damp soil and decaying logs, and if you hunt after a spring rain when the sun has warmed things up a bit you’ll likely be rewarded. Don't count on help from die-hard 'shroom hunters, however! Not only is the morel's flavor prized above all other mushrooms, but it's notoriously difficult to cultivate commercially. And so hunters are loath to share their fields lest others clean them out first.

Watch out for false morels. 'True' morels have caps that are completely attached to the stem--while false morels in the genus Verpa have caps that hang completely free, like a thimble placed on a pencil eraser. One of the verpas, Verpa bohemica, is known to be mildly poisonous to some people.

Batter dipped and fried up, nothing compares to the 'sponge mushroom's mild oyster flavor (hence the 'dry land fish' label). Some folks shun the batter, and saute them plain with butter and onion. They can be dried (never frozen!) for the off-season months (they need to be soaked in water for a few hours to reconstitute them). Or just use them dried: they can be turned into powder with a rolling pin to make a wonderful morel "spice" that can be added to sauces.

Related post: Land fishing for Molly Moochers

sources: Firefox 2, ed. Eliot Wigginton, Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1970
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/morchellaceae.html


hickory+chicken dry+land+fishing sponge+mushroon morels appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

Their scientific name is Morchella esculenta, but to mushroom fans in Appalachia they’re dry land fish (yes, they do taste fishy when fried up) or molly moochers. Elsewhere in North America the hard-to-find morel mushroom is also known as a yellow morel, common morel, sponge mushroom, honeycomb morel, or haystack. Many European languages share similar names for our English morel, such as the Bulgarian morchella, the Danish morkel, the French motile and the German morchel. As morels are choice edibles, they are sought out by mushroom foragers throughout the world.

Shroom hunters claim you can sometimes actually hear the molly moochers grow as they push their way through dried leaves on still chilly ground in early spring.

Morel mushroom hunting attracts novices as well as expert searchers. The best time for morels is May but with more than 100 different types of mushroom, mushroom hunting is a summer-long activity.

The scarcity of molly moochers has made the “patches” of the mushrooms to be a highly guarded secret in many vicinities. Patches may be found under tulip poplars, white and green ash, hickory, elm, striped maple, sycamore, in abandoned apple orchards, and, most significantly, in burned areas after a fire. In some parts of Europe, laws were passed to prevent the burning of forests that had previously been set to promote morel growth the following year. The lack of consistency in morel fruiting has been a deterrent to commercial cultivation.

Molly moochers contain more protein than most vegetables, are rich in vitamins E, D, K and the B group, and their fiber is conducive to proper intestinal function.

Get out and look around for some of the best dining pleasure to be had anywhere!

sources:
www.mwrop.org/W_Needham/h_notebook.html
www.wild-harvest.com/pages/morel.htm
thegreatmorel.com



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