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by Chef Boy Ari
(Editors’ note: The following
is a new Durango Telegraph feature, “Flash in the
Pan,” a food/cooking column. It’s written
by Ari LeVaux, aka Chef Boy Ari.)
 Black
Dog’s voice howled into my answering machine: “Chef
Boy Ari, come with us to the land of the giants.”
Already committed that day, I was so crestfallen I could
barely return the call.
“Morels the size of pint jars,” he said. “We’ll
need chainsaws to cut them down.”
With a big, wet weather system approaching, whatever
didn’t get plucked that day would soon become waterlogged.
In my irrational desperation, I groped for some kind of
rain check.
“Is the spot...far away?” I asked.
At the other end, I could feel Black Dog look at me like
I was crazy, and I was embarrassed for asking. This is
a man who wears a T-shirt that says, “Anyone foolish
enough to ask a morel plucker where he got his morels
is foolish enough to believe the answer.” Even if
I could have joined the party, I would have probably traveled
blindfolded in the trunk again. But after a tense pause,
Black Dog surprised me by naming the county to which he
was headed. (Later, I learned that he had gone in the
opposite direction.)
I missed more than morels that day. On the hunt, Black
Dog’s senses are razor-sharp, his mind assembling
the clues, the elevation, weather patterns, trees, plants,
mushrooms, and geological conditions. He can smell them,
almost as well as his fungus-sniffing black German shepherd,
Zora.
The next day, I went to Black Dog’s den and saw
the morels, as big as he had promised. “Stuffers,”
he sang, as he dumped and sorted crate after crate. “Fill
’em with herbed cream, crab meat, bread crumbs 85
.” Morels on drying racks, morels in the industrial
fridge, morels for selling, morels for drying, and more
for immediate consumption. The phone was ringing, people
were dropping by, Black Dog was juggling, living the mushroom
life at full throttle.
In a quiet moment, we gathered around a mushroom field
guide. Black Dog’s fingers worked the pages with
the skilled ease of a trucker working 16 gears, and he
had a comment for every page. “That one’s
medicine 85” he said, his finger touching a picture.
Then he reached for a jar on his spice rack. “Got
some dried right here.”
Then we were staring at the section on boletes, of which
Boletus edulis, or porcini, is king. Boletes are easily
distinguishable by the spongy underside of the cap, rather
than the common gills. I’d heard somewhere that
all boletes are edible, and I asked Black Dog if this
was true.
He flipped to a photo of a sinister looking blood-red
bolete. Boletus satanas. He looked at me and raised his
eyebrows. “Would you eat that?”
Black Dog advises aspiring mushroom hunters to educate
themselves – with field guides, classes and consultations
with seasoned mycologists like himself – before
tasting their harvest. Even with an allegedly edible species,
if you’ve never tried it, start off with a small
piece, cooked, to make sure you don’t have a personal
reaction.
Beyond personal safety, there are important rules for
ethical harvesting, as well as the legal side of gathering
forest products – some national forests require
recreational pickers to obtain a permit. Black Dog stewards
the website of www.fungaljungal.org, which provides a
wealth of information on most things fungal, all around
the West, including many recipes, and references and links
to more information.
Meanwhile, I took a sack of morels home to the lab and
began my experiments.
After preparing the pan with chopped bacon in grapeseed
oil, I removed the bacon and added morels – small
ones whole, big ones cut into halves and quarters.
Batch after batch, I added different combinations of
sherry, vermouth and white wine. I also tried small quantities
of aged balsamic vinegar and cider vinegar from a jar
of pickled hot and sweet peppers, as well as mashed garlic
and butter. I seasoned them with salt.
Hot out of the pan, the morels tasted like a walk through
an enchanted grove. The complex flavor recounted the uneven
ground, the melting snow and the occasional unfamiliar
forest whiff that makes you stop and say, “What
is that?”
The morels sponged up the acid and fat, a meaty earthtone
symphony of flavor in my mouth, like a sip of wine into
a mouthful of meat, but more complex; so full and juicy
it pushed tears from the corners of my eyes. I didn’t
want to adulterate this flavor with anything. No bread,
no pasta, no vegetables. Not even mayo.
But the next day, the savory adulterations began. I dressed
homemade butternut squash ravioli with a morel nutmeg
sherry cream sauce (from Black Dog’s website) and
garnished it with crispy sage leaves fried in peanut oil.
The next morning, morels and potatoes for breakfast.
Every time, I lick my plate afterward like the Chef Boy
Doggy Dog I am, just to keep tasting that wild forest
taste.
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