Sunday, May 20, 2007

Mayapple



I remember my Grandfather teaching me to look for mushrooms among the Mayapples. Each spring Granddad would make numerous trips on his old Ford Ferguson tractor to the southwestern end of his creek bottom to search among the Mayapples for white morel mushrooms.

Frequently he would be rewarded with a number of the delicious delicacies. Grandma would slice them in half and soak them in a pan of salt water overnight. The following day would find her rolling them in flour and browning them in her cast iron skillet. Granddad may have found them but the entire family loved to eat them. The tasty plate of mushrooms would disappear all too quickly!

I assume the mushrooms still grow there but they are camouflaged so well that I never was good at finding them. Today I was content to photograph the delicate blossom of the Mayapple

8 comments:

Chad Oneil Myers said...

Oh come on, you should have fried it up ;)

Nice photo.

Unknown said...

Hi Salty

I've never seen a Mayapple or even heard of one but I love the blossem. Well done.

I've missed so many of your posts while I was away and I have to get back too see what I've missed. You always have such interesting posts.

photowannabe said...

I've never seen a mayapple before either. I love the way you captured the subtle color and shadows.

lv2scpbk said...

I remember my mom talking about these too but don't remember much what she said. Very nice photo.

ASHE said...

Mayapples are hard to photograph, but you nailed this one :)

Its funny that I read your comment about Ansel being a "handful" about 10 minutes after I finished cleaning up the dirt and broken-up plant pieces from a flower pot he pulled out of the kitchen window! I really don't know how people manage with real live human children :)

Ed U. Cayshun said...

As tot he mushrooms, I found several last year for the first time ever and like your family, I soaked them then fried mine. Very tasty. I was upset that this year I didn't find any. I think the cold snap in April killed them off. Oh well, there's always next year!

Ed U Cayshun
http://educayshun.blogspot.com/

JAM said...

Beautiful backlit shot! I've never seen a mayapple blossom before.

Chad Oneil Myers said...

Thanks for your recent comments, I appreciate that.

Yeah, film and film cameras will become like musket guns. Some people still enjoy using them for old times sake.

The way photography works is changing.