Prairie Sportsman

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Instructor

It's mid-April in Minnesota and winter just won't go away. The late spring is a setback to those eager to head to the woods and find morels, ramps and fiddleheads. But that doesn't dampen the enthusiasm of forager, Nicole Zempel. she's out tracking the upper Minnesota river valley to show us what's coming alive. (soothing music) Okay, check it out, scarlet cup. One of the first one, ones of the day here but you're gonna see hundreds of them. Some of them are just so pretty and I never get tired of seeing them all different shapes, all different sizes. This is so fun. So they always grow on twigs and they are one of the first mushrooms to fruit after a winter and they oftentimes, when there's snow on the ground you're still gonna see scarlet cups. They're a cool weather mushroom and they're just gorgeous. Inedible mushroom, but I think they're so pretty. Like I don't have the heart to harvest them and they're not like a sort after edible I hear that they taste kind of nutty like a rich earthy flavor and more scarlet cups. I told you we're gonna see like hundreds. Ah, perfect, all right? So it's a scarlet cup and you can see here, the mycelium that it's fruiting from. (soft upbeat music) And we need mycelium, there would be, dare I say almost no life on this planet if it were not for mycelium. 90% of our plants are here maybe even a little bit over because of their connection with mycelium. So it'll connect different roots of plants to trees and they communicate their needs. If you've seen pictures of under like underground with the mycelium and the little pings of light, very similar to our own brains. And actually, a tree says, "Hey, I need this," that mycelium picks up that ping and boom it sends it or a plant needs a certain something, boom, that mycelium is gonna send it. These are mock oysters, they can be smelly. Apparently they're not going to harm you but they're not recommended as an edible. And you can see these gills here, how pretty is that? And this particular mushroom produces a pink spore. So if I didn't know what this was, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna get a piece of black paper and white paper side by side. Then I'm just gonna put it in this case, gill side down, maybe put a glass around it and then check back, half hour or so to see what color those spores are. And you want the black white paper because if you have a white spore, it's only gonna show up on the black paper and then I'm gonna look the spore color up in a book. And also when I'm researching the mushrooms, in the description, it lists spore color. (soft music) People always ask me if a mushroom's not edible, what's it good for? And I'm like, well, they have jobs to do, right? And one of those jobs is decomposing wood and you can see just how soft and crumbly it is. And that basically once it's done decomposing it's gonna be nutrient rich top soil. So it keeps the forest healthy. I'm fascinated just by the decomposing wood. I think it's incredibly beautiful. And I can truly, gimme an hour, I will sit here and just look at these stumps and find all kinds of life in them, oh. Some old turkey tails. See, we didn't walk away very far and look at all this stuff we're finding. Oh, here's a better scarlet cup. Oh, right next to a ramp. There's another ramp, oh, couple of them. And we were in a hot bed of like ramps. There, there. (soft instrumental music) I only take one leaf per ramp plant. And I stagger my harvest because ramps like most things are really threatened. Just loss of habitat or over harvesting. And I think humans kind of have that tendency like, wow, these are great, they're good, they're there. Let's just get 'em all. But it takes five to seven years for one of these plants to produce seed. So if I were to like, dig this up, take the bulb, that's it. It's gone from the forest forever. And then something that I love even more than ramps are nettles. And I used to avoid them. I just thought, you know what? No, it hurts to harvest them. Finally, a friend had prepared some dish with nettles in 'em and I was like, "Wow, this is amazing, these are so good." I have discovered that I think they are my favorite plant as far as taste, anything in nature, there are medicinal benefits or anything that you forage is gonna be really healthy for you. But nettles are one of the most nutrient rich plants on the planet. People are often not afraid of 'em, but they might avoid 'em like I used to because they sting you. They have little fine hairs that are like hollow needles. And so if you walk through a patch of nettles you're probably gonna come out with some rashes or walts. But if you kind of harvest when young too like this, but in that upward manner. I like to put them, just scald them in some boiling water, and then they're not pokey anymore. I put them in pasta dishes, soups, you can do tea with them, all of the rhizomes and the root system, it's the whole plant is edible from top to bottom. (soft music) -

Instructor

In the weeks ahead, Nicole will be searching for other spring delicacies. The fiddlehead should start popping. Next week our temps are supposed to kind of consistently warm up, so, you know, 50s or above kind of consistently they'll start to pop. I take only ostrich ferns. And a lot of them, people have growing in their yard. They can forage in their yard and they don't even know it. 'Cause I want my fiddleheads to keep coming, I'm only gonna take two or three little fiddleheads per plant and let the rest just grow. Parmesan and crusted fiddleheads is what I make. And I like 'em a variety of ways, but that is my favorite. There's something called the wild Prairie onion, those and again, most any of these wild plants they are threatened due to habitat loss. If I harvest, let's say a wild Prairie onion I'm gonna cut the base off and put the roots back into the ground. Then there's wild garlic coming up. That'll be all in the next month. We'll start to see the Prairie onions, the Prairie garlic and then the mushroom season kicks in too, dryad's saddle or pheasant back, morel mushrooms, oysters, they'll fruit, morel are excellent. They are, you wait all year for mushroom season like to really kick in with the morels. So it's the excitement factor, but also they are so, so tasty. I make a really good morel white gravy, I put that over like pork chops, it's excellent. -

Instructor

Besides morels, chanterelles are one of Nicole's favorite shrooms. They're a great dessert mushroom. They smell like a spring breeze and they start fruiting July, August and take you right into fall. I make chanterelle cake. I know people make chanterelle ice cream. So it's, oh, and they're great in pasta dishes too. (soft instrumental music) So jelly fungus is super popular in Asian cuisine. Super, super iron rich. It's very good for you, it does not taste. It does not smell, you can eat it raw. After a good rain, these will plump right up. And then when they are plump I like to just cut them off at the base and I'm gonna go home and throw those maybe in a stir fry. I don't know, man, there's just plants up the wazoo, fungus up the wazoo. You can eat forged meals all year long. People ask me, well, I bet you're bored because it's winter. And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" Like if it's, 20 degrees, that's comfortable for me and know when I'm out there. And there is always something. You can find enoki, it's a cooler weather mushroom. The wild version is velvet foot. That looks like a burst of fire. There are about anywhere between three and 5 million species of mushroom yet to be learned about and discovered. We know of right now or science has been studying and knows 80,000 ish species. So you figure that's mind blowing what's out there and yet to be discovered (soft instrumental music) (guitar music) -

Instructor

Nicole has harvested about 20 varieties of mushrooms and is familiar with dozens more edibles. But the fun guy bug didn't bite until 10 years ago. And at first, like I didn't give mushrooms a second thought, and I never noticed mushrooms. Then I bought my home and it butts up to some Prairie land. And so my first passion and love was plants. And so I learned to ID those plants and some of those plants that I was IDing on the Prairie led me into the woods and I was IDing plants in the woods, and I saw, I don't know what the first mushroom I saw was but I was like captivated by it and intrigued. And then I just went crazy full bore down that rabbit hole of learning about mushrooms. -

Instructor

The self-taught forger takes photos of wild mushrooms and plants, then uses books to ID them. When the Nicole spends countless hours alone in the woods, she doesn't keep her knowledge to herself. She especially enjoys introducing young people to the magical kingdom in the woods like the tiny horn fungus beetle, the male lives its entire life on an artist's conk mushroom and will fight off any other males at enter its home. Her passion is infectious and she is frequently asked to lead community workshops. I quickly learned like the deeper you dive into the land and all that it has to offer us, like the land is so giving, I always feel like it never takes it just knows how to give. Too with the uncertainties now, like in supply chains, food, inflation, knowing that I can come out here and create a meal for free, it's kind of cool. And when I'm out on the land, whether it be woods or Prairie, I am not thinking about anything other than the sounds or what I am seeing. And I come here and all is well, all is right. You know, and I learn so much. (instrumental music)