Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 348: A Deer Hunter’s Guide to Mushroom Hunting

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Ep. 348: A Deer Hunter’s Guide to Mushroom Hunting · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and today we are switching things
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: up and the interest of arming you all to engage
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: in local, social, distance friendly activities and affordable means of
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: acquiring food. We're delivering to you today the ultimate deer
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: hunter's guide to that tastiest of springtime endeavors, mushroom hunting.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired Dunt Podcast, brought to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: you by on X. I'm I'm excited about this one
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: today because back with us on the podcast. He He's
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: disappeared for a couple of months now, but we are
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: back with the hot tub hunter, the baritone bomber Spencer
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: new Hearth. I'm glad you're back on the show. Spencer.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: How are you doing? What's up? Mark? I'm doing good. Um,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: just in the same boat as everyone else with the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: quarantine thing. So how how are you coping? Uh? You
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: know it's not too bad. Um. We have these zoom
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: calls like every day at work, and every day I'm
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: more grateful that I'm not dealing with like regrets at
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the house. So the quarantine thing isn't awful. I'd love
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: to be like traveling out of state and hunting, um,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: but it's just like more important matters. So I'm okay
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: putting this side for a spring. Yeah, I feel like
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: you're leaving. You're living a very different quarantine life than
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of us, because it is Yeah, like you
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: just said, me and Ben and a lot of the
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: guys in the Meteor team, we're just just trying to
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: keep our heads above water, chasing kids around and trying
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: to still get work done and all that. And when
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I go on Instagram and I look at what Spencer's doing,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: He's playing like four Game night with his wife. Like
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: you're going off doing all these crazy things, not going places,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: but it looks like you're living this wonderful life still, um,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and I don't like it. I don't like seeing your happiness, Spencer.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: It's killing uh good. Well, I hope I make you
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: jealous again a small with like some giant bucks or something. Yeah,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I imagine you will. Um. So So, Spencer, the reason
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: why other than just catching up, the reason why I
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: wanted to get you on for this one is kind
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: of this whole quarantine thing that's been going on. It's
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: got me thinking about different things I can be doing
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: locally since I can't travel lot of stay right now,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people in the same boat. They're
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: stuck at home. Um, hopefully they can do some turkey hunting, hopefully,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: some deer scouting, hopeless, some stuff like that. But we're
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: a little more limited than usual. And one of the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: things that I personally was thinking, you know what this
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: year I'm finally gonna get serious about it is mushroom mounting.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: And you have been harpened on me about this for
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: a while, and I know you're still passionate about mushrooms
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: that you would be the guy that talk to It
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: seems like, given the lockdown, given the fact that you know,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: grocery store runs are an endeavor right now, that anyway
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: you can get more wild food from the outdoors safely,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: socially distance from people, that's that's a good thing, and
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: mushroom hunting seems to provide that. So what I thought
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: we could do is get a deer hunter's guide to
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: mushroom hunting. So right, everyone listening as a deer hunter,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: so we all have that same shared context, and you
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: are a deer hunter, so you've got that shared context,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: but you're also this mushroom nut. I figured you could
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: be the guy that's best suited to train people that
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: know how to deer hunt how to translate that into
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: mushroom hunting skills. So number one, do you feel like
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you're up to the task? And then number two, why
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the hell should we care about mushroom hunting? Did my
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: did my reasons ring the bell? Or is there something
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: else to it? There is more to it? But I
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: think I am of the task. Yes, I love mushrooms. Um,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I would. I would confidently say that in the last
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: decade I've picked up more pounds of mushrooms than they
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: have more pounds of shed alers. I know that for
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: a fact. It might just because you're Spencer, but it's
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: it's it's multiple things going on in there. It's that
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not very good at shed hunting, uh, And I
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: do love mushrooms. So I think I went to the task,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: and I think your audience should care about it because
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: as deer hunters and assumed turkey hunters, they're already familiar
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: with areas that are going to contain a lot of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: morale mushrooms. Um. And then as we'll talk about a
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: little bit later, one of the things that makes morales
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: so valuable is their inability to be farmed. UM. So,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: as we you know, like talk about how this is
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: an amazing time to be outdoors people and have all
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: this wild food in our freezer, this is like a
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: whole another level of that. You are going to go
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: to a grocery store and buy morale mushrooms because they
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: don't exist in the same context that like packaged meat
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: or packaged vegetables do. Morales can't be formed like a
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: lot of other um, mushrooms can be. So there's a
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: value in that that it's like really really hard to measure,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: and it's one thing that makes these mushrooms so special. Yeah.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I from the little bit of mushroom hunting of done
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: and a little bit of eating of them, I think
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the last thing that surpriably noted is just how delicious
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: they are too. Not only are they rare, but they
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: taste really, really really good. UM. So that's certainly something
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: to keep in mind for all this as well. But
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta bring up one past story because
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I think people listening you know, they've heard you on
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: rough Fresh Radio, they've heard you on regular episodes of
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Wired Hunt, they've heard you just out the fact that
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: you've picked up more mushrooms and sheds. But they still
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: might be wondering about your mushroom credentials. Honestly, I might.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: If I was listening right now, I might still be
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: sitting here and saying, you know, I've seen pictures of
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: this guy, I've heard him. I just don't know if
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: he's a mushroom man. So I just want to lay
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: out one anecdote for you. We were we were in Montana.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I was in Montana this past December. I think it
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: was December early January, I can't remember which, but we
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: were at a bar. It's really Christmas party, so it's
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: so like mid December, Okay, yeah, yeah. So we're at
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: a bar in Montana, kind of a dievy bar that
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Ryan Callahan recommended, and we're sitting in the back corner
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: all the table, and I noticed that Spencer wasn't with
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the group. Everybody else was in the group talking and Spencer,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: you were gone, And of course I'm concerned about your
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: well being, so I start looking around, Where is he?
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Where is he is he okay? Did he get lost? Um?
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Common things you've got to worry about with a character
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: like you. And I look up towards the bar itself
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: and there you are sidled up next to another guy,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: and you're very close, speaking very excitedly to each other.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what to think. I wasn't gonna pass
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: any judgment. I had no idea what was going on
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: over there. But I could tell that you were really
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: into something. And so later that evening I asked you
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: what you guys were doing, and you informed me that
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: you had just joined the Rocky Mountain Mushroom Club. I
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: think is what it was? Is that true? Can you
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: confirm or deny this? It is the Southwest Montana Micological Association.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: E've ben better and what what does that mean? Well, um,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: mid December is a really awful time to join a
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: foraging club because there's not really anything to do when
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: there's like a foot of snow on the ground. So
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: thus far I haven't done anything. But at this point,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: it's just like a regular newsletter that goes out to
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: like the one fifty something members of the Southwest Montegana
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Micological Association. I'm speechless. And I'm impressed that that. I
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: think that warrants or that showcases your dedication to this
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: pursuit if nothing else does. The fact that you're part
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: of a club, you get a consistent newsletter and you
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: use the word micaological mycaological. Wow. All right, So there
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: you have a spencer. Is the reality of when it
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: custom mushrooms? Uh so I can add more to that.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't It wasn't just by chance that like
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this guy looks like a mushroom
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: water now. He he had his laptop up at the bar.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Like Bozeman is a college town, this was very clearly
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: a college student, and the background on his computer was
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a fly Garrick mushroom, which is like this very niche
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: mushroom that unless you're like really into my college, you
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: wouldn't like recognize it's important. And so I was like, hey, uh, like,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: what's to deal with the uh flag Eric's And then
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: he started telling me that he was doing part of
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: his dissertation on it. He was a grad student uh
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: in Bozeman here, and he was a member of the
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: mushroom club. And that's how I got in. And then
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: we spent like a half hour talking mushroom hunting. And
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, I'm a happily married guy. So
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: that was like my version of picking up a woman
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: at the bar was finding someone to talk mushroom hunting with. Yeah, man,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: you you uh had a hell of a one night
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: stand as far as mushroom talking. Um, you said that
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: he didn't look like a mushroom guy. You saw the background.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: But if you had to try to describe what a
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: mushroom guy looks like, could you, Oh, well, I I didn't.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: What I meant by that was that, like, you don't
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: look at somebody and recognize necessarily at their mushroom guy.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: But I do like if if you had to, though,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: if I forced to try to sketch out what your
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: stereotypical mushroom guy would be, that's what I want to hear. Um.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: You know, like Ryan Callahan is a pretty good example.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: You mentioned his name, and that's a good one. Like
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: somebody who has facial hair of some sort. Certainly if
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: you're a male, that's a requirement. And then like fairly
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: dirty clothes when you're out in public places. That's that
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: seems like something else that um, mushroom hunters have UM
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: besides that, I don't I don't really know, probably drive
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: some sort of vehicle that's not like real high end UM.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I come across all kinds of mushroom hunters that are
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: like driving these old station wagons or these um little
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: s tens, really real beat up pickups things like that,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: so that that would be like a stereotypical mushohunter. I
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: think is there a little bit of like a counterculture
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: vibe within, like the hardcore mushroom people like people like
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: to be like people take pride in the fact that
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: they kind of fly under the radar, they do something
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that's just a little bit off the main road that thing. Yeah, yeah,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I think I think there's definitely like in off the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: grid thing to mushroom hunting. It It feels like another
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: level of kind of UM self sustaining is going out
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: in the wild and discerning like what is an edible mushroom?
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: What is a magical mushroom in which one might kill you?
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I think there's like a whole another level to that
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: UM beyond like killing a deer and taking it to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: a butcher and then having these steaks in your freeze, right,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I think that's certainly part of it. Yeah, yeah, okay,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So I feel like I've got a good foundation now
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: to get serious about this UM. Alright, So you mentioned
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: something that has always been on my mind when I
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: looked at possible lingering concerns about getting in a mushroom hunt.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Is this idea that I could kill myself if I
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: accidentally ate the wrong mushroom? How likely is that? Is
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: that like a real thing we need to be worried
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: about UM or with a little bit of basic information,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: can we safely do this? Like, help me understand that preliminary.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: One of the great things about morales is that they
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: are part of what's called the fool proof for. There
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: are these four mushrooms that are very common. They have
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: a wide distribution across North America. UM. They are choice edibles,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: meaning they taste great, they are easy to work within
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: the kitchen. And then on top of it, which is
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: maybe the most important thing of being one of the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: fool proof for is that there's hardly anything like it
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: that can be UM confused for what that mushroom is
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and make you sick or kill you or poisoning or
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: anything like that. And so a morale is part of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: that fool proof for now. There is this thing out
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: there called the false morale, which is largely like an
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: incorrect term um and a very loose term um. A
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: false morale mushroom to one person might be a totally
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: different mushroom to another person, and a totally different mushroom
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: to another person. A false morale refers to this other
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: type of mushroom that is like not even very closely
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: related at all and doesn't look all that similar to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a true morale. UM. And there's a handful of these
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: mushrooms that are categorized as false morales. Most of them
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: are edible and taste fine, but there is one that
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: is highly toxic um and it can kill you. I
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: think the University Alaska has done some research and it
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: said that it produces this chemical that's like similar to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: what's in rocket fuel and it basically causes your organs
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: to shut down and diarrhea and lightheaded is and things
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: like that. But as I said, UM, just a very
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: little amount of um mycology knowledge and you'll be totally fine.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: It's it's like if one of your listeners were to
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: look at a white tail next to an antelope, you'd
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: be like, well, these are very clearly different things. Um. Sure,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: they all have board legs and hoofs and they've got
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: these things coming out of their head. But that's like
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: basically where their similarities end. And so if you look
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: up a little bit what a false morale looks like.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Obviously this is impossible to describe um over the podcast,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: they grow a little bit sooner than true morales. UM. Typically,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: a true morale is going to be like yellow or gray, um.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: A false morale is going to be like purple or
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: um more maroon or brown. And a false morale it
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: has that kind of brainy cap like a true morale has,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: but it also looks like somebody stepped up, stepped on it,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: and it was left outside in the sun and rain
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: um for a while. So if you just get a
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: little bit of information on what those look like, it's
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: going to be as quick to you as looking at
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: an analok next to a white tail to recognize that
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: these are different things. Yeah, that's a good analogy, and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: you've got there's an article on the Mediator website which
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: shows an image of the two next to each other. Right, Yes,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: there is um, and that shows one of the species
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: of the false morale. As I said, there are a
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: handful of mushrooms referred to as false for false morales. UM.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Many of them are just fine to eat, But as
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a beginning mushroom hunter, I would just cross them all
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: off your list, don't mess with them at all, just
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: in case you were to get the one that is
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the wrong one. YEA. If if I wanted to just
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: be super duper safe about my mushroom hunting the spring,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and I was going to pick up a mushroom identification book,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: is there one you'd recommend or one that you have
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: that's good for pre in anything like that. So I
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: have a handful of um mushroom hunting books, and I
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: think that's right. I think it depends on what level
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of involvement you plan for. So if you are somebody
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: who lives in Illinois and you want a mushroom hunt there,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: but you also plan on taking a spring turkey trip
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: down to Louisiana and you plan on taking a white
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: tailed trip out to Nebraska or something like that, then
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I would get a broader one, UM the Peterson Field Guide,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: which has that like very recognizable cover of having some
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: pictures of illustrated mushrooms and then it's like green and yellow.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: That that's a very common field guide for anything, whether
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: it's it's birds or trees or mushrooms. So that's a
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: great one, UM if you plan on like getting serious
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: about this in hunting in multiple places. But if you
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: are that person that lives in Illinois, UM, there's a
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: lot of really good regional guides for wherever you live. UM.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: And with those regional guides there's often more specific information,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: better information for your area. And so I would recommend
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: one of those. Okay, you mentioned this, UM, this fool
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: proof for so morales are one of those. But what
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: are what are some of the other mushrooms that we
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: should be thinking about that we might be able to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: pick up the spring um? And maybe there's more than
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: just those three additional but I guess what are the
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: common ones that if I was starting out, I should
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: have on my radar. So Morales is one of them, UM,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk more about those later. Chicken of the
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Woods or another one. UM. I would rank them as
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the top five tasting mushroom. They taste great. They have
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: this super distinct coloration. It's is very vibrant orange and yellow,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: and it's one of the things that makes them so
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: easy to identify. And a really cool thing about chicken
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: of the woods is that they grow in war miss patches.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: So if you go out morale hunting, there's a good
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: chance you're only gonna come home with like as much
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: that will fit in your pockets, and that's it. Just
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: have enough for like a saw tepe pan. Chicken in
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the woods, on the other hand, will grow in these
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: enormous patches where it's nothing to go find. Um a
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: statue of chicken in the woods. It's like ten pounds
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and more so, they are bright orange and yellow. Some
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: people call them sulfur mushrooms. Um. Some people call them
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: rooster of the woods, but they have that name because
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: of their very bright colors that are similar to a rooster.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: And then they also have that name because the way
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: they function in the kitchen is similar to that of chicken.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: So vegans are very big fans of chicken in the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: woods because they're a great substitute for whatever you would
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: normally do with chicken. You can toss them in a
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: pasta or eat them as they are, like like slice
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: them into these big honks. Um. There's a lot of
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: things you can do with the chicken of the woods.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: That's that's two of them. Um. A giant puff ball
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: is the third of the fool proof for now. These
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: are super recognizable mushrooms UM. And they range from the
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: size of like a baseball, which is pretty common. Um.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I've seen some as big as softballs. But there are
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: these legendary puff balls that get up to the size
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: of volleyballs or even basketballs. UM. And basically it is
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: um exactly like what I just described. It is this
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: volleyball that is sitting on the ground with like no stem.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: If if you cut one of these puff balls open,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: it is pure flesh throughout the entire thing. And so
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: it is this very dense mushroom. UM. And those those
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: grow across the country. You'll see them in the spring,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: but I've also found them in the summer. They kind
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: of grow in these more meadowy areas like around I
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: don't know, ankle high grass, and a lot of people
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: refer to them as the breakfast mushroom because is they
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: are great to use in omelets, uh, just with eggs
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: on toast things like that. So the giant puff ball
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: would be the third of the four, and then the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: last one is a shan trail. Um. Chantrails grow typically
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: a little bit later in the year. They're one that
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: can grow though, like from spring all the way through fall.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: UM usually at higher elevations in more molinous areas, and
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: shan trails are very obvious and like a chicken in
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the woods. They also grow in these enormous patches. UM.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: My first time like experience in shan trails was this
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: last year in Montana and I came across this whole
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: entire hillside that was orange um. I could have left
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: with fifty pounds of shan trail as if I wanted.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And they don't have anything that looks really like them.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: There is this thing like jack laner and mushroom um
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: that is very toxic. But again it's like comparing a
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: white tail to an antelope. They're not that similar. And
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Chantrell's tastes great um similar to morales. They have like
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: this earthy, nutty flavor that is awesome in the kitchen.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: I feel like ninety of the time when I hear
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: about mushroom hunting, it's people talking about morrel's. Is that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: because Morel's are the most prevalent. Is it because the
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: mushrooms you're gonna find out there morals. So they're just
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: so popular because of that or is it just because
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: people because they're easier to find, or is it because
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: they just taste so good? Like? Why is it that
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: morales seem to be the thing when someone says mushroom hunting, Oh,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: they're gonna go find morrel's why why is that? I
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: would say that um, similar to like what makes a
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: walleye so good is that they have this firm flesh
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: that is super easy to work with. You can do
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: anything with them in the kitchen, And so if I
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: wanted to, I would sound like Bubba Gump them the
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Forest Goat movie, where he's like, you could put them
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: on toast, you can put him on a burger, you
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: could put them with eggs, you could throw them in aposta.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: There's just like an unlimited amount of things you can
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: do with morales. Um. And and then there's also this
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: perceived value. Whether or not you choose to cash in
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: on that value, UM, it still means that, like it
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: makes it extra special when you're eating this thing that
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: in some years it's worth fifty dollars a pound. UM.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: So that's that's certainly part of it even if you
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: never sell a morale in your life. It's just like
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: this cool thing to eat. Uh, Like what would ordinarily
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: be part of this Michelin Restaurants five star meal. Yeah? Interesting, Okay, Um,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I feel like is it is it? Is it fair
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: to say if I'm gonna pick up much from hunting
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: for the first time, and I don't wanna, you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: over stry my skill set and I'm just gonna I
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: want to focus on just one kind of mushroom morrel's
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: would is the fairest that morales would be like the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: beginner's starting point, Like start there. Morales are a good
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: place to start because they are one of the fool
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: proof for they taste so good. Um. They grow during
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: a time of year like for your audience where they're
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: likely already in the woods. Um, whether that's turkey hunting
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: or shed hunting or doing some like early spring scouting
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: whatever that is, you're already on the woods anyway, so
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: you're not really sacrificing, um, like you're not interrupting white
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: tail hunting for example, to go look for morales. And
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: so I think that makes them a big plus as well.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Where it gets difficult for a beginner is that mushroom
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: hunters are as tight lipped as anybody in the outdoor community.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: I've said this before, but like I've had people offer
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: up their best turkey hunting spots or exactly where to
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: go catch a limit of walleyes in the spring, but
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: most mushroom hunters take their best spots to their grave.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: And so for that reason, you basically have to set
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: out and discover your own barrell mushroom hunting areas, which
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: which is tough. That that's that's certainly a barrier four beginners,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: But hopefully a podcast like this in articles that we
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: have on the mediator dot com things like that can
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: like shorten that learning curve and make you confident when
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: you go onto the woods that you are going to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: find some Yeah, it's funny you mentioned this secret spot thing.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I've got a good friend who whose dad is a farmer.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: He owns a lot of land, and he gives us
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: all permission to go out there in turkey hunt all spring,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: and he's like, go at it, shoot you know, go
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: ahead and shoot turkeys. Doesn't care about that at all.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: But if you even touch a morale, you're in deep trouble.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: So let's your deer hunt, turkey hunt, whatever, but don't
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: you dare get into his mushroom spots. Yeah, so yeah,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: that definitely seems to be true. It's that kind of
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: a community. Yeah, I get it. They're they're delicious. Um.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: So what's the timeframe, what's like that window of time
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: that we can be thinking about this. I think we're
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: smacked out in the middle of it, right. Yeah, this
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: this is um maybe peak mushroom hunting in the country.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: For the South, um, mushroom hunting is just kind of
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: wrapping up. But for the Midwest, they're in it right now.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: And then for like the North, um, they're going to
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: be starting out here probably within a few weeks. So
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: what does that uh from what march so in like
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: when those mushrooms pop up, it's not super well understood.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: And this is something that we should say on the
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: front end of this podcast that as much as it
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: may appear that I know about mushrooms, or other people
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: know about mushrooms or like the available literature, mushrooms are
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: truly an enigma. Specifically morales. Morales are an enigma, UM.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: And part of what speaks to that is our inability
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: to cultivate them. There was this grad student in two
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: who he cracked the code on morale mushrooms. He was
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: at San Francisco State University. I believe it was. Um
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: he was like the first person to artificially or to
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: harvest artificially grown morale mushrooms. And this would like absolutely
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: change the mushroom industry. But three months before his patent
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: was granted, he was murdered. Um. Yeah, and this is like,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: this is like part of the wildness of morale mushroom
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: hunting lower anyway, do you have a desire to someday
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: write a book, Spencer, because if they do, there's your
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: book right there, man. Yeah. Yeah. Uh. Despite Ronaldo or
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: like leaving behind this public patent that anybody can go
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: see right now. Um, he very clearly left some things
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: out as most patents due to like kind of guard
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: his secrets. Um. And he also had this super lucrative
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: contract with Domino's Pizza that went with him to the grave.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: And nobody since then has been able to replicate morale mushrooms.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: And so I just want to like put all that
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: on the front end. Our world's greatest minds have worked
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: on this and they can't solve it. There's just so
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: many mysteries around morale mushrooms, and so there's not a
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: ton of this that is like super firm. It leaves
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of areas for foragers to kind of fill
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: in the gaps. UM. And that's where like different than
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: maybe white tail hunting. Um. I think white tail hunters
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: are as smart as they have ever been at any
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: period of time because of like how small the learning
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: curve he's got with podcasts like this and things like
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the q d m A that that distribute all this
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: great scientific literature. UM. Mushroom hunting. On the other hand,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: with morales, there is loads of value in listening to
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: those old timers and figuring out like where they like
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: to look for mushrooms and when they like to look
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: for mushrooms, because that might truly be the best information
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: we have available. So I want to put all that
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: on the front end before we get into some of
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: these things, which like this is when they grow, this
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: is where they grow, this is how to find them,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: things like that. It's fascinating hearing you talk about this stuff. Um,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: I'm really stuck on this guy's story. I want to
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: learn more about the dominoes murders of the much man.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I would love for there to be something more. They're like,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: some competitor hired these people, but it came down it
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: was a botched mugging in this park in the middle
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: of the night by these teenagers. Um, and that's just
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: kind of where it's been left at. So they say, right,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: so what are what are the what are the old
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: timer tails? You know, like within the deer hunting world,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: you know, folks like to say that certain moon phases
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: impact dear movements, certain such and such like. We always
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: like to debate these things, the various factors that might
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: influence dear. Um, what are some of those myths or
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: beliefs are you know, old sayings when it comes to mushrooms.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: So if you want to simplify all this, you could
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: look at soil temperature and even this is like an
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: enormous window for when morales grow. Um, if you look online,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: you're gonna find numbers that range from forty five degrees
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: up to like sixty three degrees when morales will be growing.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: If I had to pick a window when mushroom hunting
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: is best, I would say in that mid to high fifties,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: So fifty six fifty seven around there. When you're soil
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: temperature in that first four inches reaches about that temperature,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: morales are going to be popping up. But for that
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: old timer wisdom that we reference, there are these awesome
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: folksy sayings that are are made to help you figure
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: out when to hit the woods. And I've gathered a
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of these over the years through forums and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: through you know, talking to people firsthand, and and interviewing
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: folks from morale mushroom hunting articles. And I'll go through
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: the list here in the Great Plains where I grew up.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: The most common one is that about five to ten
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: days after the dandelions get their yellow is when you
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: should be morale mushroom hunting. So if you live somewhere
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: from North Dakota down to Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, places
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: like that, when the dandelions starts showing up in New Yard, uh,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: five to ten days after that, that's when the mushroom
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: hunting is great. In New England, I've heard it said
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: that when the blood route starts to flower. Now, I
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: don't even know what a blood looks like or what
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: that is, but the best one that I've heard repeated
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: many times in New England and the East. Another one
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: of the East is when the peak turkey strut has happened.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: That's also when peak morale time is um, which kind
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: of makes sense, Like I could I could say that
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: also works for the Great Plains, but what really is
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: the peak turkey stripe? You know that that's like a
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: hard thing to nail down. In the Midwest, um, when
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: oak tree buds are the size of mouse ears. So uh,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: if you want to imagine what a mouse ear looks like,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: which is basically nothing. But once those buds start to show,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: that's when it's time to look for moraws. In the South,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and this is a very common one, maybe, like one
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: of the most common ones is that when the dogwood
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: trees reach the size of a squirrel's ear. Again, very
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: similar to like the oak trees and mouse ears, same thing.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Once those buds start to show on the dogwood trees,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: its tund to look for morales. In the Great Lakes area,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: these are maybe a little bit more specific. When jack
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and the pulpits start to open, or when may apples
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: put on their umbrellas. Are those things that sound familiar
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: to you? Mark I've got no idea what a jack
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: pulpit is. Jack, Jack in the pulpit, Jack in the pulpit. Okay, Yeah,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: i'mna have to look that one up. Okay. So that's
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: that's like, uh for for the great legs folks in
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: the West. Um, when the when the oysters start popping,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: So in oyster mushroom is this other very obvious mushroom
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: that uh, it's not one of the food proof for
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: but it could be. Um, it's this large mushroom that
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: grows on the side of dead trees near waterways. When
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: you see those, then it's time to look from morales
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: in the Pacific North in the Pacific Northwest when the
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: wild flowers start to open, and then on the West
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: coast when the daffodils start to bloom. So there are
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: all kinds like like dozens of these folksy sayings for
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: when it's time to look for morales, um, all of
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: which I think are really cool. I read in one
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: of your articles about this um about the shortness sometimes
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: of the window that you have. You know, it comes
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: to like a turkey hunting season, let's say here in
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Michigan openings April eighteenth, then it runs through the end
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: of May, so I've got like six weeks to chase turkeys. Um.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: And it sounds like there's these varying windows for morals.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: They could be popping in March, they could be popping
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: in June, depending on where you are in the country.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: But like, how long does that window last in any
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: given area? Like, am I looking here in Michigan? I'm anecdotally.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen or heard people talk about
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: finding mushrooms as early as like now, middle of April
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: ish all the way through May. Um? Is that is
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: am I? Am I right in that recollection? Or is
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: it usually a shorter window, because I feel like I
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: read somewhere that you said sometimes it might be ten
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: days and then they're gone or something like that. So
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: the window that you have from mushroom hunting is totally
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: depends ending on weather. Ideal temperatures for morale mushrooms are
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: like wind nighttime lows during the fifties and daytime highs
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: are in the seventies. That is the perfect mushroom growing weather. Um.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: And for a lot of the Midwest, um, like right
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: now is when they start to show up further north.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: The end of April there are kind of like these
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: windows where it's guaranteed to happen, Like in Michigan, Mark
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: you're never gonna have morales showing up in March probably
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: that that's like not gonna happen, and the same thing
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: in the South and the South they're not gonna be
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: picking morales in June, but they might be in Montana.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: So there are these like very vague windows. But the
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: whole thing is dependent on weather, and so there might
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: be some years where the mushroom season so to speak,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: uh last for just a week because you get like
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: these great temperatures where the mushrooms pop up. And once
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: they once they do pop up. Despite morales appearing to
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: have like this firm flesh, they are super delicate when
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: it comes comes to the temperature. So if you have
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: morales that are visible and the daytime highs are in
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: the seventies and nighttime lowers are in the fifties, and
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: then you see in the forecast there's like three street
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: three straight days of high eighties with no precipitation at all,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: or if there's an enormous cold snap that's going to
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: show up where it's like thirty degrees, that is your
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: mushroom hunting deadline. UM, they might still be visible, like
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: into that window where it's very cold or very hot
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: and very dry, but their quality is going to disappear.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: They're not going to be like choice edibles any longer.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: So some years, if you have this perfect uh temperatures
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: and you get precipitation, um like mild temperatures and rain,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: that's exactly what you want for a good mush from season.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: If you have that, it could last like three weeks.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Or if you live in a state, um like Idaho
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: where you have these river bottoms where you can go
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and find moraus and kind of these textbook areas, but
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: then you also have these high elevations where they grow
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: that might be spread out over the course of like
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: a month and a half. Granted, those mushrooms are being
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: found in very very different areas. But if you're in
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: someplace in the Midwest and you have this white tail property,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: normally that mushroom hunting season isn't gonna last for more
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: than a few weeks UM, but it's almost always at
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: least like five days long. Do you do you We're
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: not trying to say do they regrow? Like if I
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: were to go in and I find a patch and
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I pick them. Could I come back two weeks later
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: and there will be more there if you get the
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: right weather. Um, you'll you sometimes have like these secondary girls, um,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: but largely it is that the mushrooms are showing up
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: in some other area. Now, if if you find this
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: patch around a dead tree where there's like twenty morales,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: and you pick them all, and then you come back
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: in a few weeks, there's probably going to be a
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: few left that you just missed. Um. But if you
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: have those perfect temperatures, the mushrooms are going to continue
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: to grow. So yeah, you can come on like a Monday,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: grab a bunch of mushrooms, and then come back, you know,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: like two weekends later, and you'll find some more interesting.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about finding them. Um. When I first
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: started shed hunting, I used to go out and just
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: walk every square inch of the property I had access to,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: look at it all and hope to find something. But
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: now after I've done that for a long time, I've
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: learned to try to become more efficient with my shed hunting,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: and I'll spend most of my time shed hunting in
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: a couple of smaller areas that I think there's high
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: odds of their being anglers. So I more time and
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: those best spots and a skip over or just gloss
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: over all the other lower likelihood places. UM. I read
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: you describe something similar for mushrooms, but I'm kind of
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: curious to hear you explain this a little bit more
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: how you actually approach you know, your process of searching
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: for mushrooms. So as you've said with shed hunting, Um,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: you've written this on the metior dot com and shed
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: hunting articles that like eighty percent of the sheds are
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: found on twenty of the landscape. That that's an accurate quote, right, ye, yeah,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: and that also can apply to morale mushrooms. Um. Although
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: it may seem totally random, and I just you know,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: laid out how we don't hardly know anything about mushrooms,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: it's not completely random. We can still somewhat predict like
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: where they're going to be, and to understand that or
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: to predict where these areas are, it's helpful to like
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: get into the weeds a little bit and under stand
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: how and why morale mushrooms. Girl, So morale's are the
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: fruiting body from this mycelium that lives in trees. There's
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: this my celium and it lives in treesum Uh. The
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: simplest way to put that would be that it's like
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: the roots of a mushroom, or it's the vegetative portion
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: of a mushroom, and then the morale that you see
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: and that you eat is its fruiting body. So maybe
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: think of like the morale mushroom as an apple, and
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: then like the mycelium is like the branch from that
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: apple that you don't really care about, or you know,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: you don't really pay attention to. This mycelium lives in trees,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: and when a tree is healthy and happy, it will
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: only put out the mycelium will only put out a
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: handful of these fruiting bodies. But when there's a eve
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: threat to the tree and the tree gets stressed out,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: that's when it puts a lot more effort into reproduction
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: and it kicks out all kinds of these fruiting bodies.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: So the first thing you want to look for when
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: you're looking for morales is it a wooded area. That's
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: that's a must have. You're not gonna go out um
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: into like the bad lands of Nebraska and find morale
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: mushrooms or like the desert of Arizona, and find morale
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: mushrooms that won't happen. You need trees. The next thing
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: to pay attention to is if the landscape has been
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: stressed out, And by stressed out, I mean an area
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: that has experienced some kind of fire, whether that's a
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: wildfire in the West or some like low intensity prescribed
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: burn in the South, that stresses out those trees and
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: helps them kick out mushrooms. Floods are maybe the best
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: and the easiest one. You just have to, you know,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: search along waterways that experience flooding and you're gonna find morales.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Um The year following two thousand and eleven, when every
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: river in the country was swollen and swallowing up all
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: this river bottoms and islands, two thousand twelve was like
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: the best mushroom hunting year that I've ever had because
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: it just stressed out all these areas uh and caused
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: all these trees to produce the fruiting body that is
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: a morale mushroom. So fires, floods, logging areas, those will
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: kick out morales. Mining areas the same thing. If you
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: have wind damage. If you may be hunting like a
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: river bottom that experiences some flooding or swamp area. UM,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: and the roots system doesn't take really well. And then
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: you have this huge wind event in the summer and
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: it knocks over some trees or bends over some trees,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: but they're still alive. UM. That's a great time to
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: go find morales is the spring after the wind damage
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: to trees, because that tree will have been stressed out.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: And so with with this, when I talk about something
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: being stressed out, UM, you want to go in mushroom
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: hunt the spring after an event. So if if a
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: property is burned in the summer, go look next spring.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: If a property floods in May, go look the next April.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Um that that first growing season after traumatic event is
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: going to be the best time to find the morales.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: And then each year after that you'll still find some morals,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: but not at the same level you did that first time.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of people proactively managing their properties
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: are doing things to stress the environment to produce more mushrooms,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Because a lot of things you just describe are things
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: that deer hunters do on their properties to improve the
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: habitat for deer, like a prescribed fire or I'm thinking
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: like a selective cut or or hinge cutting. Right. Hinge
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: cutting is you're cutting a tree partially but not killing it.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: So I wonder if you hinge cut a bunch of
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: areas for your deer, if that also is gonna gonna
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: become a mushroom hot spot? Is that is that possible? Yeah? Absolutely, um.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: But as far as people intentionally doing it, besides maybe
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: those folks that are trying to um realize Ronald Ower's
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: work after he was slain, I don't. I don't think
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: anybody is out there like manipulating the landscape to grow
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: more morales. Um. But with that said, like wildfires in
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: the West are um obviously a lot more common. And
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: that's like the worst kept mushroom hunting secret is that
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: after a mountain range burns that you can go find
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: all these morales because they're super easy to smot and
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: it's like as predictable as a morale gets. But I
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: don't want other people to think that those burns can't
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: apply to them, because, like I said, there's all kinds
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: of like low intensity burns that happen. Or farmers are
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: constantly torching ditches to to get rid of the old
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: plan matter. Um, if any of that happens, like near
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: a waterway or near a wooded area, those spots are
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: going to produce moral mushrooms. Okay, So like walk me
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: through the the bullet list of hot spots to check.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: I think you've kind of described this, But okay, if
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: i'm if I'm trying to recall, I'm gonna be hitting
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: anything that's been burned, I'm gonna be hitting anything that's
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: been flooded. I'm gonna hit anywhere where there's a lot
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: of dead trees. Um, Are there any other of these
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: hot spots that I should make sure I've got on
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: my list that I'm checking off as I walk through
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: my property or a piece of public land, any other
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: quick like specific spots to look for. Yeah, And and
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: I don't want to give the wrong impression that those
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: are the only places to find arouse. Those are just
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the most obvious places to find arouse. Like I said,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: a healthy tree is always going to kick out morale
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: mushrooms that has this my celium in it. Um. So
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: you can go out to a cattle pasture that doesn't
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: get wind damage or mining or log or anything like that,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: and you can find morale mushrooms there just now to
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: the same quantity that you would with some of these
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: other things. Copy that. As far as other things to
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: look for, it's kind of a seasonal thing. And so
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of the morale mushroom growing season, you
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: want to look for um like more permeable soils like
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: sandy or soils um south facing slopes, things like that,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: places that catch more sunlight, uh have less trees, those
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: sorts of areas, those are going to grow the morales first.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: But as you have um like less permeable soils and
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: more shaded areas, that's where the morales are going to
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: grow next. And if you want to if you want
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: to think of this like an island um because islands
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: flood all the time that they're one of my favorite
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: places to go look from arale mushers. If you want
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: to think of this like an island. Early in the
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: growing season, you're going to look around the perimeter of
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: the island where the soil is sandy or where there's
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: less trees. But as that season progresses, you're going to
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: move into those dancery areas where it gets less sunlight
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: and where that soil temperature doesn't rise quite as quickly.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: That's all I got on that parts are confusing. Oh
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: that's awesome. Um okay, so what about the specific types
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: of trees. One of the things that I've been told
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: by my mushroom hunting buddies is to look for dead
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: elm trees specifically. And I was told to look for
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: a tree that is dead but it still has some
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: of his bark on it, but it's in the process
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: of starting to shut it's bark. That is like a
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: specific thing I was told to do. And like they
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: told me, just walk around the woods or farm fields
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: and look for trees that look like that and then
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: just go check eats tree. Um is that true? Are
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: there any other specific trees like that or anything along
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: those lines? To narrow down even further, Yeah, so we
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: we kind of just covered the macro since like you
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: want a wooded area and preferably a wooded area that's
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: been stressed, that has quality soil, gets sunlight, um, and
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: get some water. That's kind of like the macro view,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: but down to a micro since you're absolutely right on
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: you want to search around trees um, trees that are
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: in the process of dying or trees that have very
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: recently died. They're going to kick out the most morale mushrooms.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: As far as tree identification goes, this is something that
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: is widely debated. Um. Somebody on the East Coast might
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: have an absolute favorite tree to find morales wise, but
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: then somebody in the Midwest, UM might swear that morales
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: don't exist around trees like that. I think maybe like
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: the three trees that are agreed upon by all mushroom
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: hunters in every region are elms, ashes, and apple trees.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Those those three trees seem to be pretty agreed upon
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: that they will grow morales. But then you have these
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: other ones like tulip poplars, um yellow poplars, cotton woods,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: fir trees. Those are all sort of these regional things.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: And like one of the best mushroom hunters I know
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: in the Northeast will say that tulip poplars don't grow morales.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: But then someone in the East who picks tons of
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: mushrooms told me that they never find did I say
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: this backwards? Someone in the Northeast said that they don't
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: like finding them around tulip poplars, but then somebody in
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: the East said that that's their favorite tree to pick
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: morales around. So this is something that kind of goes
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: to or the how to find more morale mushrooms is
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: that when you do stumble upon a morale mushroom, stop
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: and like visually taken as much as you possibly can, Like,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: is the soil here wet or dry? Are there other
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: mushrooms growing around it? Is the tree dead? What kind
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: of tree is it? What other vegetation is here? Is
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: this spot getting a lot of sunlight? Just like deer hunting,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: morale mushroom hunting favors those that are detail oriented, um
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: and are prepared to look in the correct areas. So
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: take note of all those things. Um. Somebody who finds
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: a crapload of morale mushrooms in Illinois around elm trees
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: might not like have the same success if they went
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: over to Oklahoma and looked around elm trees there, it
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: might be apple trees in that area. So it's just
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: very regional and it comes down to like paying attention
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: to what trees they grow u upon when you do
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: find them. Yeah, are there any other tips like that
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: when it comes to actually spotting them? You know, you
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: just describe this idea, like if you find one here,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: it's a good thing to look around more. And there's
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: so many things like that when it comes to shed hunting,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Like if you find one side, you should take some
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: extra time right in that area and circle out because
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: the other side might be nearby. Or one idea is
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: to change your perspective. So when I'm walking through a
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: spot that I really think there's gonna be sheds, I'll
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: stand on top of a dead tree to get a
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: higher perspective, or all crouch down low to get a
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: lower perspective, or all make sure to look behind me,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: because you know, sometimes there's different obstacles blocking view. Is
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: there anything like that that would apply to mushroom hunting too,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: or something else entirely? Yeah, So I I've done a
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: lot of like most of my public or a lot
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: of my mushroom hunting has been done on public lands.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: And sometimes you'll be in an area that you very
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: clearly got beaten to um You'll come upon these little
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: stems of morale mushrooms that have been pinched off in
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: little groups, and you'll recognize that someone else has been there.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: When that's the case, then you want to get off
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the trails. If that person is like following a game
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: trail or something, they're likely just gonna stick on that
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: game trail. Um. And then think about other things on
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: the ground that like act as um. What's the word
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for here, Like little nurseries for morale mushrooms.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: And so a few examples of this would be like
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: around a down tree, You'll have this bark on the ground.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: If you remove some of that bark, a lot of
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: times you'll have morale mushrooms growing right there. They're just
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: out of sight. Um. So that's a great place you
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: can find morales. Another example that was mushroom hunting the
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: sandbar in Nebraska one time, and I kicked over a
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: tumbleweed and there was like this huge patch of twenty
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: morales sitting underneath this tumbleweed. And so there's some things
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: like that that's that's not always necessary, um, But if
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: you weren't an area that has competition, then keep that
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: in mind. As far as finding morales just anywhere. This
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: may seem obvious, but not enough foragers, pay attention to
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: the other mushrooms in the area. A lot of mushrooms
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: favor the exact same kind of conditions that morales do,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: and so if you're walking and all of a sudden
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: you spot some shaggy manes or spot some inky caps whatever. Um,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: stop what you're doing and really look around, because there's
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: a great chance that morales and that morals are in
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: that area. Mhm um, what about this. I take binoculars
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: with me every time I go shed on it. And
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: every time I see something that even gives me the
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: tiniest bit of curiosity that it might possibly be an antler,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: I pull up my bios and I glass it up.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: I'd always be rather be safe than sorry. Do you
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: do something similar mushrooms? Do you bring byn Nope, nothing
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: like that, because you're often mushroom hunting and like these
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: closed quarters. Um, you're never going to spotted mushroom that's
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: more than like ten yards away. So something like binoculars
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: it's necessary. But other things that you do want to
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: bring with you. This is like a very um like
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: low gear activity is mushroom hunting. You don't need binoculars,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: but you should. You need something to carry the mushrooms in.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: And this is something that all of the best borgers do,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: But they carry their morales in a mesh bag. And
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: the reason for that is is the mesh bag is
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: delicate enough that it doesn't like crush the mushrooms. It's
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: not like putting them in your pocket or throwing them
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: in your backpack where you also have a camera and
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: a bottle of water. So you you need to store
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: them in some place that they're not going to be crossed.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: But part of the mesh bag thing is that morales
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: are spread by these trillions of spores that are inside
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: those brainy caps. And so in theory, as you're carrying
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: around these mushrooms that you just found, you were helping
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: distribute those spores in other areas, so that that's not
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: a necessity. Um, But it's like a nice nod to
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: future mushroom hunters that they can find those as well. Yeah. Man,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: that's karma right there. I love it. Um. So so
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: we gotta we have to talk about one step that
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: happens before putting them in your special future mesh bag,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: which is how to properly pick a mushroom. The first
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: couple of morales I found I did this wrong. I
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: later found out, Um, can you walk me through the
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: correct way to pick a mushroom? So and in this
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't until recently that I understood this better, but of morale.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Mushroom hunters will tell you too. Either when you find
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: a mushroom, a pinch it off at ground level and
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: just take with you what is visible, or the more
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: serious people will carry a scissors or knife with them
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: and do a clean cut right at ground level. What
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: I've learned is that that's actually not really necessary. It's
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: not indicative of helping that morale grow in the future.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Unlike some other mushrooms, um, morales don't have a volva
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: that is kind of like that root system, and so
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: whether or not you pull a mushroom out of the
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: ground isn't going to determine if the mushrooms grow again
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: there next year. But I still prefer to just take
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: what's above ground level, because often when you're pulling these
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: things out of the ground, you're just bringing dirt with you,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: um and other things that you're going to end up
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: removing later on. So it's it's dealer's choice. I just
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: still prefer to take what is above the ground and
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: leave everything else. Okay, alright, I feel a little less
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: bad about what I did then, Um so all right,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: then that brings us very naturally to the next step.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: In the process. We've we've picked them carefully, we put
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: them in our mesh bag, We've spread our spores all
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: over the place for future generations of mushroom hunters. Now
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: we get them home. I made this mistake myself. I stored,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: I cleaned or stored my mushrooms wrong and ended up
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: drying them out and not, you know, not getting as
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: good of a final product last time I tried this.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: What's the proper protocol for once I get home with
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: all those mushrooms? Should I should I clean them? How
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: should I do that? Where? Should I put them in
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: the fridge, outside in the bag? What? Tell me? Walk
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: me through the whole thing. So with morales, the less
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: cleaning the better. Again, while they appear to have like
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: this firm flesh, it's still pretty delicate. And so if
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: you get a morale that doesn't have any kind of
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: bugs living in it or little worms, or it's not
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: really sandy, then just like a gentle rinse will do.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: But it's very common that you get a whole bunch
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: of morales um from kind of a muddy area after
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: like a fresh rain, and so they're covered in dirt
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: and they've got these little insects living in them, and
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: you can see these little holes in the cap of
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: the mushroom where worms have been in. And with that
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: you'll have to do thorough cleaning that can look like
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: a number of different things. Um. Gender Razl is a
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: great forager from the Northeast. And her preferred method and
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: she's picked when they mushrooms, as anybody I know, is
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: to do this very gentle uh soaking of mushrooms. So
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: if you've got a bowl full of mushrooms, you run
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: water over them, cold water, and then you shake them
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: around in this content in or whatever the container is. Um.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Her description was at a scale of one to ten.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Like the vigor that she uses for shaking these is
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: a three, So it's like fairly gentle that you josti
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: these mushrooms around. Then you get rid of that water,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: and then sometimes you do this two or three times over. UM.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: That's like a pretty standard way to clean a morale
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: is just toss them in some water and then you
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: have to let them dry. UM. Whether that means laying
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: them on paper towels in your refrigerator or if you
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: have like um cookie sheets where you have that air
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: coming up from underneath putting those in your refrigerator. Those
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: are great things to do. You can cut your mushrooms
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: in half vertically before cleaning them. I think that's the
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: best way to do it rather than cleaning them whole.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: That kind of helps gets out some of those insects
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: and stuff. But if you have morales that um seem
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: like they really have lots of little creepy crawlers in them,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: you might have to do like a twenty minute silk
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: in some salt water. UM that that's not super common.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: Usually just like standard cleaning methods can do it. But
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: however you clean them, whether it's just a rinse or
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: a twenty minute silk and salt water, that drying is
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: super crucial. So put them on paper towels, put them
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: on those drying sheets, whatever that is. When it comes
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: to cooking them, you want to do it ideally like
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: within twenty four hours. UM that's the window where they
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: taste best. You can do it two days later, you
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: can do it three days later, but the quality continues
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: to go down. So you want to eat them usually
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: within that first twenty four hours and usually not clean
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: them until like an hour before you're going to cook them,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: so that you you just clean them, and now you've
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: let them dry and they they've firmed up again and
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: got rid of that water, and now they're going to
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: be a good product for cooking. So what about that
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: in between time period though, between when I found them
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: and before I washed them cook because the Washington cook
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: is gonna happened the last hour, but between when I
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: found them twenty four hours ago and then how do
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: I store them? Doesn't matter how I store them. I've
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: heard this paper bag thing before. Is that what you
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: should do? What do you do with them before you
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: get to that final step? Yeah, it really does matter
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: how you store them. It's super important that whatever you do,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: your mushrooms can breathe, and so it like paper bags
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: are probably the most common answer to this, that if
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: if you pick them on a Monday and you're not
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: going to clean them and cook them until Tuesday, that
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: you just put them in a paper bag and then
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: put those in your refrigerator. Um. Now, when when I
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: say that they need to breathe, um, I really want
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: to stress that because you might think that, Okay, well,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: I can take all these morales that they have and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: put them in like this big salad bowl. Or something
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: and then put those in my fridge. But all those
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: morales at the bottom of the salad bowl, they're not
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: breathing properly, and so those are going to like start
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: to deteriorate and get really soft, and they're not going
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: to be a nice product when you're done. And so
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: whether that means like storing them in a paper bag
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: or laying them out on a plate um or whatever
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: that is, it's super important to have them cool and
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: let them breathe. So refrigeration is a must. Yes, Okay,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: what about like laying them out on a cookie sheet
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: you describe that for the drying press. What about lay
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: them on a cookie sheet in the fridge too, because
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: that way they could all be spread out. Um, I'll
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: get air and then just throw that in there. Does
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: that work? Yeah, that's a great practice. Whatever you can
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: do to help each mushroom breathe a little bit and
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: stay cool, that's what you need to do. Just the
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: absolute worst thing you could do is like throw them
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: in a tupware dish and snap the lid on. Um.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Even if you put those in a fridge, they're gonna
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: come out all slimy um and soft. It's not going
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: to be a nice product. So I found my most
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: morales ever last year. I actually like I was looking
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: for them. I didn't actually I didn't go out proactively,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: but when I was turkey hunting or doing other work,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: I was kind of peeking around. And so I found
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: a handful. And but I didn't do any of my
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: homework leading up to that. Like, the only step I
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: took was the fact that I'll kind of pay attention,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: and so I pulled them out of the ground all
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: the way, so I got a bunch of dirt on them,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: and then when I got them home, I threw them
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: in plastic bags and so it was like everything wrong,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: not a good end product. So I wish I had
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: done this podcast a year ago. Um, but okay, I'm
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: gonna do it right this year. I've I know the
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: places to look, I know how to pick them the
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: right way. I know how to properly store them and
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: how to clean them. Now it's time to cook them.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: What are your what are your favorite mushroom morale recipes
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: or preparations or ideas. The simplest thing, uh is I
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: think the best way to cook a morale is like
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: the simplest whatever you can do to like let those
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: mushrooms gine and so make that like the ingredient in
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: whatever you're doing. Um, unlike some other wild mushrooms that
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: I take you're not You don't want to take a
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: morale and like mix it with a soup or put
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: it in a pasta that also has chicken and like
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: these bold sauce flavors and anything like that, You're just
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: not doing it justice in that case. And so my
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: favorite way to cook morale is just sauteing it in
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: butter with a little bit of garlic. Um. And so
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: once you have these morales that have been sliced in half,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: vertically cleaned and dried, then you just get a sautape
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: and like really hot with butter that is popping, and
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: then just toss them in there for a few minutes
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: with a little bit of salt, pepper and garlic. I
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: think it's the simplest way in the best way to
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: cook morales. Is there the risk of over cooking morals
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: like a lot of things, you can dry them out. Um, Like,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: how do you know when you gotta stop cooking? I
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: guess this is my question. Yeah, that's that's a really
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: tough one to answer, You certainly can overcook a morale. Um.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: If this is your first time messing with morales, you
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: might be a little bit startled that the end product
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: um comes out like kind of shriveled and uh like
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: gets darker. Um, So you can overcook a morale, but
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: I think you'll sort of naturally know like when they're done,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: and you can't like there's no safety hazard really an
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: undercooking morale. So I always like lean more towards the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: side of these might not be at perfection than going
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: beyond like what that window is a perfection? Okay, so
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: a few minutes at a pretty hot saute and give
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: him a shot. Yeah, yep. And then besides that, like
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: other things you can do if if you have a
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: super bountiful harvest, Um, that's when it's maybe time to
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: get creative and do other stuff like toss them in
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: a pasta where that is the focus, or put them
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: on top of a burger, or serve them next to
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: um venison steak or whatever that is. Or um, you
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: can get really midwestern and throw them in a deep
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: frier first you would like batter them with some flour,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: freeze them for a little bit, tossom in the freezer
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: for like thirty minutes and let those get kind of
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: firm to like where you would be throwing a French
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: fry in a deep fat fryer, same sort of thing
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: with a morale mushroom, lets firm open a freezer for
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: just a little bit tossom in the deep fat fryer. Um.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: Other people I've seen will not slice their morales. Every
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: every morale I've ever cooked has been sliced vertically. It's
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: just like a really standard way to do it. I've
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: seen other people take and inject the morale that has
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: not been sliced with like cream, cheese, um, and then
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: like throwing that in the deep fat fryer on the grill.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: That's certainly an option. I don't love that idea because
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: you don't want to get them as clean and morales
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: tend to like harvest quite a bit of um whatever
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: sort of soiler in so if it's in a sandy
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: or soil um, it's super super important to get that
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: sand out. And cutting them in half like really helps
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: with that process. And so you can't keep them whole
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: and get creative with some of those other things. But
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: I would wait until you have like ten pounds of
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: morales to screw it out with it man. Um. I
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: I am legitimately converted, I think, at least from from
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: an intrigue standpoint, like, I am legitimately ready to get
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: into this, to take it serious, to find some mushrooms. Um.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: And shame on anybody who chose not to listen to
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: this episode because it wasn't just about daring. I hope,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: I hope people were willing to give this thing a
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: shot because I I think this is pretty cool. I
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: know there's a lot of people love musher money, um,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: but it seems like such a natural thing for deer
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: hunters to add to our to our schedule throughout the year,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: a fun new thing to do out there while we're
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: learning our properties or learning the public clan over to
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: hunt and get some good food out of it. So
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: I'm pumped. I'm pumped give a shot. The only downside
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: Spencers that we've got like eight inches of brand new
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: snow to the here in Michigan. So I don't think
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: I've got mushrooms in my near near future, but hopefully
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: hopefully soon. That's okay, Like one of one of the
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: things that attributes to whether or not it's going to
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: be a good spring for morales is if the soil
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: is very moist in the spring. So if you get
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: a late snowfall before that mushroom growing season, that's great.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: A lot of people love to see that. So while
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: I might suck right now, um, in like three weeks
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: when those morales are popping, you might be happy that
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: it happened. All right, you're making my Friday man, Thank you?
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: Is there any final there anything glaring that we need
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: to know that I haven't asked you about yet? Or
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: have we got? We got? The deer hunters gude to
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: much from hunting covered. I think there's one thing that
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: deer hunters would very much so relate to with morales,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: and that is that, um, it's it's super beneficial to
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: understand the growing process of the morales. And so a
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: lot of foragers refer to this thing as the pop.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: They'll be like, are the morales popping? Did the morales
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: start popping yet? Oh? Yeah, the morales started popping here
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: last week. And that kind of infers that, like the
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: morales all of a sudden, like this three inch mushroom
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: just shows up above ground. That's really not the case.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: It's not the pop. Isn't this thing that happens in
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: the course of a weekend and then it's just totally
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: over with, Like the rut. It's kind of this drawn
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: out thing. Um. There isn't like a lockdown where it
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: just stops. And so if you are a white tail
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: hunter who has this private ground with morale mushrooms on it,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: and you go out and you find all these morales
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: that are just like two inches big, and you see
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: in the forecast that for the next you know, four days,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be in the sixties and seventies and there's
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: like a fifty chance of rain on two of those days.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: You can just leave those morales go and then come
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: back in a few days. Because the morale growing process
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: isn't this thing that just like happens and then it's
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: over with with that nice weather, those morales that keep growing.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: And so I've had cases in the past where I
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: found morales that were two or three inches big. I
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: saw that the weather was perfect for growth, and then
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: you come back in three days, and those morales have
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: often doubled or tripled in size. And so don't let
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: people talking about the morale pop kind of Uh, fool
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: you into thinking that it's like this thing that happens
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: and it's this burst of grow and then it's just
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: over with. Interesting. I was about to say, we should
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: do a mushroom Fresh radio. I mean, that's a free
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: idea for somebody out there. That's that's a good one. No,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: we should claim it, Spencer, that's gonna be our next
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: spin off. That's right. One. One more thing I think
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: is worth covering, maybe not in great detail, but you
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: can sell morale mushrooms. Um. I know this is like
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: a really hard time of the year for people with
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: COVID and layoffs and things like that, so this could
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: be like a real option that you'd consider. But morale
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: mushrooms have this incredible market that changes from year to year,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: and it changes within the year. Um, some years you'll
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: get like fifteen dollars a pound, other years you can
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: get fifty dollars a pound. Generally you can kind of
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: expect to get that like fifteen to thirty dollar range,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: but there are things that dictate within a given season
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: what that price is going to be. And so if
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: if you live in the Upper Midwest, um, and the
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: growing season just starts and you find all these mushrooms
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: on the south facing slopes and in this sandy or
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: soil before anybody else, people are going to be willing
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: to pay higher prices because there's not a ton of
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: morales in the market. But if it is this bomb
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: spring for everybody and the entire region has this perfect weather, UM,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: and the market is flooded with morales that you might
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: only get like ten or fifteen dollars a pound, and
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: how to sell morales is anymore than this has changed
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: like over the last decade of mushroom hunting, Facebook is
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: the easiest in the most obvious place to look in
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: the marketplace. UM genuinely you'll find different sorts of buyers. UM.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: Grocery stores are pretty common, more like UM niche grocery stores.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: For example, You're not gonna see like a high V
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: or a Sunshine or a Krogers or anything like that.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: They're not gonna be buying house. But some of these
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: smaller grocery stores will be restaurants are definitely like the
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: number one buyer UM and not like dive bars or
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: Applebe's or anything like that, places that you need a
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: reservation for. They're going to be looking to buy morales,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: and that might change with with COVID and and how
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: things have adapted. For restaurants, it might not be the
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: same this year, but they're great places to sell. And
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: then farmers markets are probably where you can go and
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: get the highest dollar amounts. Again, that's likely different this
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: spring because farmers markets are probably shut down, but those
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: are great options to go and sell morales. Check your
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: regulations in your state. UM. Some places don't allow you
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: to sell morales that we're taking off public lands. Other
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: places make you have like a special foraging permit things
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: like that, So that's something to consider before you sell morales.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: And the morale market is always dictated by what's happening
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: in your region. So if you are a mushroom hunter
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: in Ohio, UM, and it's like a really good season
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: down south, it doesn't matter what's happening with the morale
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: mushrooms down in Georgia. It just matters what's happening like
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: Ohio and Pennsylvania and Indiana places like that. It's a
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: very regional thing, so you can keep that in mind
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: as you're considering the pros and cons of selling your morales.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: Have you ever personally sold in your morales. I did,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: um back in college. I paid for a lot of
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: beer with morale mushrooms. It was quite common then, UM.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: And that was when the harvests were like just ridiculous
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: for a few years. UM. Places were flooding all the time,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: and the morale numbers were just outstanding. UM. But that's
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: kind of changed. On an average year, if I just
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: have like five pounds and it's too much for me
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: to eat or something, I'll just give it away. It's
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: a super nice gesture you can do for people and landowners, um,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: especially if they also realize the value that you're handing
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: them something that's worth forty pound and that can't be
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: bought in a most grocery stores and has this super
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: unique nutty flavor. Those are the kinds of people that
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: you want to give him around mushrooms too. Yeah, some
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: got a great way to keep your hunting permission. That's right, yep.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: So back to your selling mushrooms are real quick, I
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: I gotta believe. Is it kind of like a drug deal,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: Like did you pull into a back alley and open
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: the trunk of your car and kind of open your
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: coat jacket up a little bit to cover it up?
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: And have the guy coming real close and you pass
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: something in between your hands. Was it that kind of thing? No? Um,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: yeah I was. I was mostly selling too, some like
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: local restaurants. But there is this funny thing that if
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: you like, um, if you think of a movie and
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: they're like doing this drug deal and the buyer like
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: comes in and lays down a lot of coke and
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: then sniffs it and he's like, yeah, that's that's good stuff. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: that's there's something like that with the morales. Well, they're
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: like they'll like hold it up in front of their
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: face and kind of rotate it like it's a precious jewel. Um,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: and they'll like examine if it has too much sand
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: in it or not, or like what, um, if these
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: mushrooms are too dried out or how long you've been
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: holding onto them. All that process kind of takes place. Um.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: So it is like sort of similar to a drug deal. Shore.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: I love it. I absolutely love it. If if people
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: want to learn more about this kind of thing, we've
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: got we've got some other resources, right Spencer, Can you
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: can you tell us where to find some of that? Yeah,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: So if you go to the meat eater dot com
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: and go under our cooking section and then our foraging section.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: I've written probably a half dozen articles this spring on
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: morale mushroom unting. You'll see our things from from last
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: year as well, and we cover everything that we just
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: talked about, and possibly in even greater detail. The wind
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: to find morales, how to find morales, where to find morales,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: how to cook morales, how to al morale's. All those
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: things are covered around the media here dot com. Yeah,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: lots of good recipes too, I think right, not not
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: quite so far. Um. I think this is this episode
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: is coming out here next week and Danielle Pruittt is
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: currently working on a morale recipe for the end of April.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: I'm writing something on how to dehydrate morale mushrooms. So, um,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: there's not a ton there right now, but there will
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: be cool, all right, man. Well, I thoroughly enjoyed this
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: change of pace and I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: be a mushroom hunting man this year, and if I
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: don't find a boatload, I will personally blame you. That
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: sounds good. And and if you're listening to this and
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: you have questions, reach out to me. I'd love to
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: help you and answer any questions I can. Like I said, morale,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: Like I said before, morale, mushrooms are like very closely
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: guarded secrets among people. But I don't want that to
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: be the case. So if there's something that you still
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: aren't sure about, slide into my d m s and
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: Instagram or on Facebook, whatever, and I'll try to help
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: you out. You're such a cool young kids spencer. You
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: just told us to slide into your d m s.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: That's right, and talk about possibly like the oldest thing
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: there is to like have a discussion around. And that's
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: much ladies and gentlemen. The hot tub hunter, good good stuff,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: my friend. Thanks for thanks for walking us through all this,
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: and that is a rap. I hope you guys enjoyed
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: this one. Hope you gonna get out there and do
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: some mushroom hunting in addition to whatever hopefully fun, safe
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: outdoor activities you have planned for the spring. We're just
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: starting to get some sunshine here in Michigan. It's feeling
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: very nice. I'm just dying he gets some of that
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: sun and some outdoor times, so that's a great way
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: to do it. So thank you for listening. Be safe,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: be well, and until next time, stay wired to hunt.