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According to John Butler, morel hunter,assistant chef and ad-hoc sound man of the 7 th annual Smokehouse Winery Morel Mushroom Festival, part of the lure of morels is the chase. “It’s like a glorified easter egg hunt,” said Butler, who .along with Hallberg himself, found all the morels used in the festival.
“We’re each certain we’re the morel king of Rappahannock County” said Butler, clearly only half joking.
According to Butler, morels are known for being hard to find because of their unpredictability.
“Sometimes you’ll get a ton in one trip, sometimes you go weeks with nothing, “ exclaimed Butler. According to Butler, Hallberg, and Hunsaker, morel hunters should always leave the first one they find, although whether this is because of a magic curse or just to propagate the species was a matter of disagreement between them.
There was also disagreement among the experts at the festival about the origin of the term “merkle,” popularly believed to derive from the idea that morels are so hard to find that it’s a “merkle” if one succeeds.
However, Butler thinks the word is just a corruption of the word Morel, and may originate in the genus name of the species .Morchella.
However one says it, events like Smokehouse Winery’s Morel festival bring new fans to the spongy fungus all the time, and morel fans will continue to haunt the back trails of Rappahannock County, scratching their heads and muttering to themselves, hoping for a merkle.
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