Morels: Michigan's Secret-Spot Spring Ritual

For a few weeks each spring, a quiet obsession grips Michigan’s woods. The quarry is the morel — a wild mushroom with a distinctive honeycombed, spongy-looking cap, usually an inch to four inches tall, in shades of gray, black, and yellow. Prized by cooks and notoriously hard to find, morels turn ordinary people into secretive treasure hunters who will tell you that they found a haul but never where.

Veteran hunters trade tips about tree associations and soil, and swear by recently burned areas where pine once grew. The Michigan DNR even publishes a morel map to help. The hunt is social, too: northern Michigan throws festivals around it. Boyne City’s National Morel Mushroom Festival, held the weekend after Mother’s Day, draws hundreds of mushroom lovers for guided competitive hunts, tastings, and seminars, while the village of Mesick bills itself as a mushroom capital and runs its own long-running festival with hunts that welcome beginners.

One neighborly word of caution, since it matters: only eat a wild mushroom you’re certain is a true morel, always cook them rather than eating them raw, and check yourself for ticks when you come out of the woods.