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In the middle of February, after weeks of snow and cold weather, I receive
my first seed catalog. Cabin fever strikes, and I start yearning for sassafras
tea and morel mushrooms.
I grew up in the hills near New Canton, Illinois. We usually dug the sassafras roots in mid-March.
Back in the 1930s, we had a neighbor called “Hominy Jane.” She always dressed in black and drove a horse and buggy. The neighbor children called her “the old witch.” Hominy Jane grew white field corn, and made and sold hominy. She also sold herbs and the sassafras root bark. My father often bought the roots from her.
Many people believed that sassafras tea cured boils, rheumatism, thinned the blood, and was an aphrodisiac. This might be true: My father was married twice and fathered 14 children. And he always drank the tea in the spring.
Around the fifteenth of April each year, we begin to search the south hill sides and the short May apple patches for the harbingers of spring — the elusive morel mushrooms.
My wife and I now live 75 miles from New Canton, but return each spring for two weekends. We hunt the morels and enjoy walking in the woods, and along the creeks in Pike County.
We stay at the Green Acres Motel in Pittsfield and do nothing for two days but hunt mushrooms. We meet other mushroom hunters — some from as far away as Chicago.
We prepare as if for a military campaign. I drive our four-wheel drive Jeep and take a large cooler — for food and to preserve the mushrooms. We each wear high-top boots and carry a walking stick to clear a path, knock down briars, and as a weapon against snakes. An occasional copperhead is killed in the rocky bluffs near Kiser Creek. I also carry a canteen, hunting knife, Army 45 pistol, and mosquito spray. We used to carry several plastic shopping bags, but have since learned this is not the type of bag to use. Expert mushroom hunters have asked us to carry the morels in mesh onion or apple sacks, because as you walk through the woods carrying morels in a mesh bag, the spores fall out, ensuring a crop the next year.
We still have landowner relatives and friends in Pike County. I always send them Christmas cards, and in a good year, share part of our mushrooms.
We always hunt Horn Holler, the holler where I grew up, on the first day. Horn Holler is unique is many ways: There’s approximately one mile of hills and ravines, with a branch fed by two natural springs down the middle. On each side of the meandering branch are small rich-sandy-soil flatlands. We have found our largest mushrooms here.
The hills are covered with oaks and elms. Many are dead — and downed timber is found throughout. All types of fungi besides morels are common; usually we find the long-neck mushrooms near patches of morel. Patches of May apples are everywhere. I still find morels in the same spots as I did when I was ten.
Spring came late last year, so we missed the mushroom season by a week. During our last two-day hunt, we found a total of just 17 mushrooms. However, we did see a deer herd and flushed a Tom turkey.
It takes about 30 to 40 good-sized morels to make a pound. When I totaled up the cost of the trip, the night at the Green Acres Motel was $45 and the 150-mile round trip between Springfield and New Canton was another $60. A pound of mushrooms in Beardstown or at the Salisbury Tavern is about $15.
Of course, I’m getting my Jeep tuned up and an oil change. And my wife already
has reservations at the Green Acres.
This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2004.
