Morel Imperatives: The Mushroom Rush To Hungry Horse
HUNGRY HORSE, Mont. -- Word spread last winter that spring would bring riches to the Whitefish Range slopes around here. That brought prospectors from around the country to Hungry Horse. Last month, almost overnight, a city of tents sprang up in the wilderness outside town.
These prospectors are gathering morels, a mushroom prized by restaurants and gourmets. The morel hunters are here because fires around Hungry Horse last summer consumed more than 240,000 acres of land. It's axiomatic among morel hunters that a forest fire one year means a bountiful harvest the next.
When he loaded his family into a beat-up white Chevy van and drove here in May from his home in Randle, Wash., Hassan Voir figured he'd be earning as much as $800 a day. A Cambodian native, Mr. Voir has become a professional picker of wild mushrooms -- matsutakes in September, chanterelles in January. When hunting morels, Mr. Voir travels in the path of wildfires, which his brother tracks for him on the Internet.
Mr. Voir has also learned that picking is just one way to earn money in this business. Another is buying. Structured markets don't exist for wild crops. But markets emerge wherever these products are found. Here, crude white tents with signs that read "mushroom buyer" have sprung up on the dusty washboard road that winds north to the Canadian border. One of those tents belongs to Mr. Voir.
The 38-year-old Mr. Voir rises before dawn each morning and strikes out to pick, carrying along an empty pickle bucket and walking as many as five miles, looking for burned logs, riverbanks and other spots where morels thrive. When he returns 10 hours later, he opens his buying tent and starts his second job. Nearby, his wife and three young children live in a rugged tent with a blue tarp spread out before it like a front porch. Mrs. Voir warms her infant son Jamal's milk over a fire.
Like Mr. Voir, many of the morel prospectors are Cambodian. At night, they gather around low tables made of plywood and cinder blocks, where they eat noodles with fish sauce, gamble and drink shots of whiskey as disco music plays on a karaoke machine.
The prospectors have nearly doubled the Hungry Horse population of 934, presenting a challenge to law-enforcement officers. Besides tensions between locals and newcomers, there are occasional clashes between pickers enraged at perceived invasions of turf. Last year, in a different town, Mr. Voir says, a man threatened him at gunpoint for allegedly encroaching on his mushroom-picking territory. Stepping away from his buying station one day recently, Mr. Voir returned to find that a thief had nabbed four baskets -- 60 pounds -- of his morels, costing Mr. Voir more than $200. He reported the theft to the sheriff, but nothing came of it.
Park rangers, under their "Mushroom Action Plan," are on the lookout for firearms. "They can be plum dangerous," citizen patrol officer Lee Downs says of the pickers. Another issue is picking morels in Glacier National Park, nine miles northeast of here, where gathering is forbidden. That carries a potential $5,000 fine, vehicle seizure and up to six months in jail. Glacier National Park rangers have issued four citations this year for illegal commercial harvesting.
This year's healthy supply means that morel pickers aren't getting the premium prices of past seasons for their harvest. Pickers here are selling a pound of fresh morels for about $3.50, which is low, they say. Wholesalers are selling fresh morels for as little as $8 a pound, not quite half last year's going price.
But the price can change as fast as the weather. When buyers spot gray clouds, morel prices inch up because buyers want to get their hands on batches without the "ash-splash" that rain kicks up from the burnt ground. On the other hand, the per-pound price drops when water-logged morels hit the market, because buyers don't want to pay for water weight.
Cooks love morels, which have a spongelike appearance, because of their nutty taste and extraordinary ability to soak up sauces. A pound of morels sells for as much as $40 at fancy food stores like Dean & DeLuca in New York.
Hauling the mushrooms away from Hungry Horse are distributors like Casey Jonquil of Alpine Forager's Exchange in Portland, Ore. Mr. Jonquil arrives in a big truck, and his contractors buy up mushrooms from local buyers like Mr. Voir. Mr. Jonquil then drives 11 hours back to Portland carrying as much as 3,000 pounds of morels.
Mr. Jonquil packs the mushrooms in cardboard boxes and ships them overnight to restaurants and wholesalers. The wide availability and low price of morels mean that many restaurants are increasing their orders this year and others are indulging in the delicacy for the first time. "It's amazing," says Tom Condron, executive chef at Upstream Mimosa Grill in Charlotte, N.C., who has elevated his morel side dish to an appetizer. "The gods are definitely looking out for us this year."
The lower prices haven't deterred Mr. Voir, who is willing to risk income stability for the freedom that comes with picking morels for a living. "Nobody controls me," Mr. Voir says. "I have no boss."
山林大火，祸兮，福兮？
去年冬天就有消息说，春天会给白鱼山脉(the Whitefish Range)附近的地方带来滚滚财源。这个消息把全国各地的探索者引到了美国蒙大拿州北部的厄马(Hungry Horse)。到了5月份，在城外茫茫荒野上，一夜之间兴起了一座帐篷都市。
这些探索者到这里来是为了采摘羊肚菌──一种极受餐馆和美食家欢迎的蘑菇。大批采蘑菇的人之所以聚集到这里，是因为去年夏天厄马周围的山火毁了24万多英亩的山林。而采蘑菇的人都知道，前一年的森林大火意味著下一年蘑菇的丰收。
5月份，哈森?瓦尔(Hassan Voir)离开了他在华盛顿州的家，用自己那辆破旧的白色Chevy货车带著一家人来到这里。他估计在这里每天最多能挣到800美元。瓦尔是柬埔寨人，对采摘野生蘑菇十分在行：9月采日本松茸，1月采鸡油菌。瓦尔顺著山火经过的路径采摘羊肚菌，这些路线是他弟弟在网上帮他找的。
瓦尔还得知，要做蘑菇生意，采摘只是挣钱的一种方法，另一种方法就是收购。固定成形的野生蘑菇市场还没有，但哪里发现了蘑菇，哪里就是市场。在这里，挂著“收购蘑菇”招牌的粗糙白帐篷像雨后春笋般冒了出来，分布在一条尘土飞扬、坑洼不平的马路两旁，这条马路往北通向加拿大边境。瓦尔的帐篷就在其中。
每天早晨，38岁的瓦尔天不亮就起床了，背著一个空的泡菜桶出门采蘑菇。他每天要走5英里长的路。烧过的木头、河边和其他羊肚菌容易生长的地方都要留意。10个小时后他回来，打开收购蘑菇的帐篷，开始第二份工作。他的妻子和三个年幼的孩子住在旁边一个粗旧的帐篷里，帐篷前面铺著一张蓝色防水布，像一个门廊。瓦尔经常就著篝火给男婴加玛(Jamal)加热牛奶。
很多来采羊肚菌的人都是柬埔寨人，跟瓦尔一样。晚上，他们聚在用夹板和炭块做的矮桌周围，用鱼酱拌面条吃，赌博，或者喝威士忌，卡拉OK机里放著迪斯科音乐。
厄马原来只有934名居民，而大批采蘑菇的人几乎使这里的人口翻了一番，这就给执法人员带来了些麻烦。不仅当地居民和这些移民之间关系紧张，采摘者之间偶尔也因草地侵占问题发生冲突。瓦尔说，去年，另一个镇的一个男人用枪威胁他，称瓦尔侵入了他的蘑菇采集范围。最近还有一天，瓦尔离开他的收购站仅一会儿，返回时就发现小偷已经卷走了四桶羊肚菌，有60磅重，相当于200多美元。他向当地警官报案，但无果而终。
执行“蘑菇行动计划”的公园巡警也得时刻警惕持枪者。“他们有可能很危险，”当地居民、巡逻官李?唐斯(Lee Downs)谈到采摘者时说道。还有一个问题是有人到位于东北方9英里外的冰河国家公园(Glacier National Park)去采蘑菇。这是违法的，一旦发现，有可能罚款5000美元、没收车辆，甚至可能被监禁6个月。冰河国家公园的巡逻员今年已发现了四宗赢利性非法蘑菇采摘案。
然而，今年的好收成却意味著羊肚菌采摘者不能像过去那样高价出售蘑菇。目前，采摘人每磅新鲜羊肚菌的卖价大约是3.5美元。这价钱很低，他们说。批发商1磅新鲜羊肚菌只卖8美元，不到去年价钱的一半。
但价格的变化可能像天气一样快。如果买家发现天马上就要下雨，羊肚菌的价格就会一点一点往上升，因为他们要赶紧大量收购好蘑菇，不会有人喜欢溅了地上泥水的蘑菇。 浸水的羊肚菌在市场上的价格还会下降，谁也不愿意花钱来买水。
羊肚菌十分受厨师的青睐，这种貌似海绵的蘑菇有坚果般的味道，能吸入大量酱汁。在一些特色餐馆──像纽约的Dean & DeLuca，一磅羊肚菌甚至可以卖到40美元。
把这些蘑菇运出厄马的是经销商。俄勒冈州波特兰市Alpine Forager's Exchange的凯西?琼基尔(Casey Jonquil)就是其中之一。琼基尔开一辆大卡车来采购，他的承包人从瓦尔这样的当地收购者手里收蘑菇。收完后，琼基尔又开11个小时的车回到波特兰，车上的蘑菇足有3000磅。
琼基尔把蘑菇装在纸板箱里，连夜运给饭店和批发商。羊肚菌的丰收和低价意味著今年饭店里会有更多客人点这道菜，而有些人还是第一次品尝这道美味佳肴。“真让人吃惊，” 北卡罗来纳州夏洛特市Upstream Mimosa Grill餐馆的总厨师汤姆?康德伦(Tom Condron)说。康德伦把羊肚菌从配菜提升为开胃菜。“毫无疑问，今年老天关照我们。”
尽管价格低了，但瓦尔并不就此放弃。为了继续过采蘑菇的自由生活，他情愿冒收入不稳定的风险。“没有人可以控制我，”他说，“没有人是我的老板。”
