a frenchman forages in the chicago suburbs

May 2009

few things will get a frenchman talking like foraging for mushrooms, especially when we reached morel season, which lasts for a few weeks in chicagoland during april and early may. Chef Pierre would breeze into class each week while morels were plentiful and boast about how many he had gathered over the weekend. 120 in one afternoon, he would say. 75 over the weekend with his grandson (pictured below). “they look like a sponge,” he said, holding one up that was almost the size of my shoe. “you can find some under apple trees after after several days of rain and about three days of 80-degree temperatures and three nights of 70-degree temperatures.”

young morel hunter

later, a Kendall instructor who had interned under Chef Pierre for several months at his restaurant told some of us, chuckling, “i asked Chef Pollin to take me morel hunting a few times, but he would usually tell me he couldn’t make it for whatever reason. i think he was pretty secretive about the places he had staked out for morels.”

one could understand his protectiveness over the morel hot spots he had found in the northern suburbs and in southern wisconsin, since the growing season is so short. morel hunters abound, and they stake claim over their favorite spots as soon as conditions are right. there are countless web sites littered with photos of people in plaid shirts and jeans, holding up their prized plastic bags filled with morels, or wearing mesh satchels on their hips (to let the mushrooms breathe) with porous morel tops peeking out.

not only that, but morels are sort of choosy about where and when they pop up. typically they are found in moist areas–around dying or dead elm trees, sycamore, poplar and ash trees and in old apple orchards. the weather seems to have the most impact on the morel season. as Chef noted, a few days in a row should be consistently warm, and nighttime lows shouldn’t get too far below the mid-40s. while they like moisture, too much soil moisture is not good for morels. in other words, morel hunters should know a few things about identifying trees in addition to morels, and they should track spring weather and soil conditions to know what to expect.

but morels aren’t the only foraged mushrooms Chef wanted to discuss. he seemingly had anecdotes about nearly every wild mushroom i’d heard of. they all had occurred somewhere between chicagoland and normandy, france over the past 50 years or so.

“chanterelles grow in the autumn,” he said. “when you go and find those, you always have to fight with mosquitoes. truffles grow in the late fall in the ground under oak trees. pigs are best at finding those; the problem is, the pig wants to eat them. dogs are better for this reason.”

next we learned that hen of the woods mushrooms grow at the base of oak trees in early fall after a lot of rain in august and september. “my biggest one was 33 pounds, which i found a quarter mile from my home,” Chef beamed. “i made the newspaper with that mushroom, 25 years ago.” i realized how much i had missed growing up in the suburbs where we were shunned from anything resembling a fungus because it was “probably poisonous.” the black trumpet mushroom, which Chef has only found in france, the red lobster mushroom that grows on the sides of trees and the “flavorless” white puff ball mushroom that grows at the base of oak trees in the fall, which Chef’s mother used to simply cook in butter. all the while, i sat glass-eyed, taking in these dry, frank descriptions like they were a fairytale.

and yet, Chef still insists that the best cream of mushroom soup always contains plain old white button mushrooms. “we would never use those fancy wild mushrooms in the restaurant to make soup,” he said, adding that it is a waste of money. “plus, those button mushrooms have a good flavor.”