The morel is among the most delicious wild mushrooms in the East, though many others are equally tasty and even more prevalent. (Shutterstock image)
The only red meat that my wife Elaine and I eat comes from the deer I kill, and most of the other meat comes from the chickens we raise and the turkeys I harvest in Virginia and West Virginia. As gatherers, we also regularly add wild mushrooms to the venison and fowl dishes my wife prepares, and the East has no shortage of delectable fungi.
“Everybody knows about morels, but some might not be aware that there are three species of morels in our region: yellow, black and tulip, which some people call ‘half caps,’” says Mitchell Dech, a wild food enthusiast from Fayette County, W.V. “Look for morels around elm, poplar, apple and wild...