Shroom Hunting

Friday, my wife and I loaded up the kids (our two English Mastiffs) and headed off to an undisclosed location for 26 hours of roughing it in the woods. It was an absolutely beautiful weekend. The highlight had to be hunting for Morel mushrooms. This was my first time hunting for the highly coveted treat. I, not being a huge mushroom lover, was drawn in by the hunt. There is nothing like tromping through the woods on a perfect spring day, having no idea what-so-ever what you are doing. Our first pass through the wooded area produced nothing but scratches from the thorns, tick bites, and flatulence from the huge breakfast we consumed before the hunt. With heads hanging low we started back to camp. It was then that the third person in our party, you know him as sticky pants Josh from a previous post, came running towards us and said he was spying on another hunting party that found an abundance of the elusive fungi. Apparently, we were going about things all wrong. You have to get down and dirty, become one with the forest. Plus it helps to spy on other people that are finding them, go in and scavenge any they may have overlooked. We took our booty back to camp and prepared them for consumption. As I said, I am not a mushroom lover. However, on this occasion there was no way I was going to pass up the opportunity to sample something I can not afford to purchase at $20 a pound. I sampled them two ways. 1) Breaded and fried and 2) Cooked in butter. To my surprise, I enjoyed them. They taste nothing like mushrooms. I did enjoy them breaded and fried a little more than the batch cooked in butter. That being said, I would eat them either way again. I hope that this was not the last time I go hunting for mushrooms. It is now in my blood, along with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever from all the damn ticks! Vile creatures!