Episode description

Today on Mushroom Hour we have the glorious opportunity to speak with Kristen and Trent Blizzard from Modern Forager. This fungal dynamic duo started out as online marketers who turned a love of mushroom adventures into a calling, a community and an obsession.

Our mushroom hunting caravan makes it's first stop in the Midwest where Kristen and Trent grew up exploring nature and hunting those infamous Midwestern morel mushrooms. Once they found each other, they quickly found their mushroom foraging skills grow along with their relationship. They now travel across the US with their camper in tow, charting their calendar to follow the mushroom seasons. As we tag along for their journey, we'll meet amazing new friends and connect with foraging communities every step of the way.

During the foraging tour, a deeply ingrained passion for morels comes to the fore as we follow the couple's camper through the winding roads of the Western United States chasing wild fires. Our tech-savvy guides have crafted highly-detailed burn morel maps for almost every state in the Western US by collating wildfire perimeter data, satellite imagery and forest service road maps. Even with all of this data, how do they screen and predict which burns will yield morels? What kind of success rates can foragers have with the aid of these maps?

Cruising across the country and filling out bags and buckets with mushrooms is great, but now what do we do with all of our fungal treasures? Trent and Kristen have us covered with creative preservation techniques and amazing recipes from their new book "Wild Mushrooms: A Cookbook and Foraging Guide". Organized around 15 species of edible mushrooms, the book shares not only amazing recipes and preservation techniques, but also the stories of 25 foragers whose knowledge graces the pages of their work. This book was a labor of love for the couple who were completely new to writing! What was it like to achieve this massive undertaking and what is next for these modern foragers?

Directed, Recorded, Produced by: Mushroom Hour

(@welcome_to_mushroom_hour)

Music by: Ancient Baby (https://peckthetowncrier.bandcamp.com/)
Art by: Wyn Di Stefano (http://www.wyndistefano.com/)

Episode Resources
Modern Forager Website: https://www.modern-forager.com/
Modern Forager IG: https://www.instagram.com/modernforager/
Burn Morel Maps: https://www.modern-forager.com/burn-morels/
Wild Mushrooms: A Cookbook and Foraging Guide (Book): https://shop.modern-forager.com/products/pre-order-wild-mushrooms-a-cookbook-and-foraging-guide-author-signed-copy