It's morel season, and this month Minnesota Monthly magazine has a story from an amateur foodie who participated in a mushroom foraging workshop.
He learned that there's a lot out there if you know what you're doing. Minnesota is a particularly good spot for wild mushrooms — morels are the best known but there are many others such as chanterelles and chicken of the woods.
Local author and forager Teresa Marrone earned the nickname "Julia Child of the Wild." She loves all sorts of uncultivated plants you might not know were edible: gooseberries, fiddlehead ferns, creeping charlie, cattail pollen, dandelion blossoms, and stinging nettles (which won't sting you when cooked and have a fuzzy texture and kale-like flavor).
If you don't want to forage yourself, chefs at places like Saffron, Icehouse, and Cosmos cook with wild mushrooms, ramps, berries, etc. However, once you start to recognize them, you might also get into picking them.
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