COLUMN: Driftwood Outdoors: Foraging for morel mushrooms

Walking a small pedestrian street in Lucerne, Switzerland, I was stopped in my tracks. Not because I saw another unimaginable work of an ancient stone mason or because I caught the delicious smell of fresh bread being baked.

I lost my breath for a second because there, in a basket mixed with an array of fresh fruits and vegetables, was a bushel of morel mushrooms for sale. Immediately, my dinner plans changed.

In speaking to the woman at the market, through her broken English and my nonexistent German, I was able to discern the morels were foraged in Turkey. This is a long way from the Midwest, where I put dozens of miles on my boots each spring hunting for the same fungus folks are after on the other side of the world.

It made me feel so much more connected to the region knowing people who speak a different language, look different and have different beliefs find joy and value in the same outdoor pursuit I do. I bought 100 grams for 7.90 francs, and my wife made exquisite pasta in our chalet overlooking Interlaken.

Morel mushroom hunting is something I eagerly await each year. I could eat morels until I made myself miserable. Fried with a light breading is good, but I prefer them simply rinsed, halved and dropped in a pan with butter.

Pile a heap of those on top of a medium-rare venison filet, and you'll understand why mushroom hunters don't share their secret spots.

Finding a place to hunt morels isn't hard. There are tens of millions of acres of public land open to mushroom hunters in the Midwest, giving you far more room to roam than you could ever cover in a lifetime. The challenge isn't having access to land for mushroom hunting. It's knowing when and where to look.

You'll hear plenty of advice from people who claim to have it figured out. Look for dead elm trees. Check old apple orchards. Focus on south-facing slopes. Pay attention to soil moisture and temperature.

I've tried to follow all of it, and I can tell you with confidence there is some truth to all those tips, but the best tip of all is to just be out there looking wherever you can.

I've walked straight to the exact conditions the experts describe and come up empty. Then I've stumbled into a patch in a place that didn't make any sense at all. Over time, I've settled on a simpler approach. Go for a long, slow walk and keep your eyes on the ground. You never know where you're going to run into a patch of morels.

There are a few basics worth knowing. All true morels are hollow from stem to cap and have that distinct honeycomb look. That part matters because there are look-alikes out there called false morels that can make you sick or worse. If you're not sure what you've found, don't eat it. Having a good mushroom guidebook with you in the woods is a solid idea.

As for additional gear, you don't need much. A walking stick helps you push aside leaves without bending over every step. A small knife is useful for cutting mushrooms at the base instead of pulling them out. Some say this helps sustain future growth.

A mesh bag is a good idea, too. The theory being that as you walk, spores fall through the bag and help spread more mushrooms across the woods. Is it true? I don't know, but it feels good to believe it is.

There's nothing quite like the taste of a morel mushroom. They have a distinct, rich, nutty flavor. It's like you can taste the Earth, in the best way imaginable. You may be able to buy a few morels on the roadside. I've yet to see them at a market in the U.S. like I did in Switzerland, but no matter what, you can't buy the experience of finding them yourself. Effort is the only path to the reward.

Thankfully, you don't have to travel around the world to find morels. If you live in the Midwest, then there's a great chance they're growing near your home. Right now, the woods are waking up. The ground is warming, and morels are beginning to push up through the leaves.

The unexpected treat I picked up in Switzerland was all I needed to motivate me to lace up my boots and hit the woods next weekend.

See you down the trail…

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