I love morel mushrooms; their robust flavor is the best of any mushroom. Regretfully, it has been many years since I’ve had one, since they are not available fresh in Florida nor in North Carolina, where we lived for 42 years. In the Midwest in the spring they are sold at road side stands, but even then are very expensive. I’ve seen them for $20.00 to $40.00 a pound, which is out of my price range. What makes them expensive is that they’re hard to find, and people who find them keep them for themselves.

I grew up in northern Indiana;  spring was the time for mushroom hunting. Let me recount some of my memories. (1) Once I went hunting with the father of a friend.  Like all mushroom hunters he took pains not to disclose his best places. Even though I was too young to drive, he took a circuitous, serpentine route to his mushroom patch to make sure I could never find it again. (2) When I was in college I went mushroom hunting with several of my classmates. The dorms were pretty Spartan, and there were no kitchenettes. We cooked the morels we found in a popcorn popper. (3) My biggest find ever came after Paulette and I were married and living in Madison, Wisconsin. We went hunting with another couple, Dwight and Joanne. Joanne was from Wisconsin, and at her suggestion we drove north and tried several woods without success. Finally, we found a likely woods near a large parking lot on the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire campus. We found over a bushel! What a feast!

You should know that a morel (pictured below) looks nothing like the cute mushroom statues that you see next to garden gnomes. They’re sometimes called sponge mushrooms and are pretty ugly.  You have to soak them in salt water to get dirt and insects out of the crevices. They say that the bravest person who ever lived was the first person to eat an oyster; I would say that the second bravest was the first to eat a morel. They aren’t even attractive after they’re cooked, but when you bite into them their wonderful meaty, nutty, and earthy flavors burst in your mouth.

Matthew 7:1-2 tells us not to judge others, making it clear it is not our place to do so. Also, when we do judge,  it is likely that we will be wrong, since we judge based on outside characteristics. God judges based on inner features. The Morel reminds us that God goes beyond our outside warts and blemishes and looks inside us. They say even a baby warthog is beautiful to a mama warthog. God bests the mama warthog; He loves YOU and me unconditionally.

Jim