by Rex Trulove

Created on: January 12, 2013

People who love mushrooms usually have their own particular favorites. This is the case with morel mushrooms, and a large number of mushroom lovers adore their flavor.

General overview

Despite often being called "morel mushrooms," morchella esculentoides or morels aren't actually mushrooms, though they are fungi. Mushroom is still a convenient name for this species. Esculentoides means "

like the delicious one," which might go a long way to saying that this is a great tasting fungi and not just an edible one. They also grow in many places, from forests to lawns, though they have strict requirements for growth. 

Identification

Morel mushrooms are one of the easiest to identify and one of the hardest to misidentify. The great forager, Euell Gibbons, once equated them to an arrow-shaped hollow bathtub sponge on top of a hollow stem. Indeed, they do rather have a distinct sponge-type look, rather than having caps many people are used to seeing with wild mushrooms, and the stem is hollow, as Euell said. No other mushroom has quite the same appearance. Even false morels are different, as they look more like brains on a tiny stem, rather than like a sponge.

Fresh morels

Like so many mushrooms, the best flavor tends to come from fresh morels. Morels are also sometimes sold in a dried state or frozen, but a lot of people would much rather have the ones they picked out in the forests themselves. This is especially true in as much as dried morels in a supermarket may be exceptionally cost prohibitive. For the most part, though, these mushrooms are better tasting when they are fresh than when they've been frozen or dried.

Culinary uses

Morels tend to not shrink up as much as more commonly used mushrooms, like buttons. This means that it can take fewer caps to give a great flavor to a meal. This mushroom can be be lightly fried with butter and salted to taste, as a side dish. It also goes great in sauces such as spaghetti sauce, and since the flavor tends to be more robust than with store-bought mushrooms, the sauces are often more flavorful. Morel mushrooms can also be used in nearly any recipe that calls for mushrooms, even simple fare like steak, onions and mushrooms. Hikers and other people who enjoy the outdoors might enjoy a morel cap raw, just lightly salted. 

Additionally, morels can be sliced and batter fried, if a person enjoys mushrooms cooked this way. Many people like them in

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