Casey Spacht cuts morels from the forest floorReading this short piece on morel foraging in The Atlantic gave me new appreciation for Casey Spacht, the guide for my own morel mission in April.
The writer and her boyfriend (armed with book learnin’) are thwarted time and again, but eventually leave the woods with a small haul.
Casey, on the other hand, already knew where to look. He was kind enough to take me to his spots, and we got lucky (especially since we had a sunny day after an evening of rain), accruing an impressive assemblage that made it into multiple savory, delightful dishes.
The story was also interesting to me because it captured a bit of the thrill associated with foraging. Here is what I had to say about it in June’s Grid:
And then there are those magical moments when the morels materialize: the heart jumps, the mouth curls into a smile. The intensity of seek and discovery is intoxicating. I try to explain to Spacht how it makes me feel, but he already knows. “To spot something like that, there’s something about it,” he says. “It almost looks alien. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I still feel the same way.”
