Back in the Middle Ages the Mandrake root was prized for its magical properties and its reputation as an aphrodisiac. It was thought to have magical properties because the root grew in the shape of a man. The only problem was they were a little hard to harvest. According to legend, if you just walked right up and pulled one out of the ground, it would scream so loud that you would be killed on the spot. Special dogs were used to dig up the root, so they would reach the untimely fate instead of their owners.
It’s early in the morning on a beautiful spring day in April. Three hunters roam the woods in an undisclosed secret location somewhere in the state of Illinois. The air is a little crisp and the daylight has just broken. You can hear the chirping of the birds and the rustling of the hunter’s boots as they lead you, blindfolded, through the forest. Finally, after a trek that seems to take forever, you stop and the blindfold is removed. You blink several times and look around, trying to acclimate yourself to your surroundings. You’re pretty deep in the woods, no trails in sight. One of the hunters says, “Look over there, under that patch of ground cover, next to the tree…two of them!” Another one of the hunters takes out a wickedly curved knife and cuts off the prize, putting it into a special sack.
No, you haven’t just witnessed a search for the magical Mandrake root of yore, but rather an almost equally reclusive search for the elusive morel mushroom. Morchella is a genus of edible cup fungi that are prized by cooks and hunted by thousands of people every year, not only because they love the taste, but also for the joy of the hunt. Sometimes the secrets of hunting for the elusive fungi are passed down from generation to generation. Hunting grounds are kept secret to the point that anyone who wants to join the hunters has to wear a blindfold.
The tiny town of Henry, Illinois sits on a bend of the Illinois River about halfway between LaSalle and Peoria. The town is the site of the annual Illinois State Morel Mushroom Hunting Championship in May. Tom Nauman, of Magnolia, Illinois started a business called Morel Mania about ten years ago. His website, www.morelmania.com is one of the hottest morel mushroom resources around. In April of 2006, it received some 1.6 million hits. On the website you can find a wealth of information about morel mushrooms and the people who hunt them. You can check out articles on everything thing from Morels 101 to Mushroom Oddities to Goodbye Elm, Hello Morels. The latter is a reference to the fact than when a lot of the Elm trees in Illinois died off because of Dutch elm disease, it created ideal conditions for the growth of morels. You can also buy special mushroom sacks and harvesting knives on the website.
Although you probably won’t see very many morel mushrooms in the produce department of your local supermarket any time soon, you can still learn to hunt for the prized ‘shroom. A long walk through the woods makes the nutty, woodsy taste of the mushroom even better. And, you don’t have to worry about it screaming.
