Ottawa Visitors Center revives Midwest Morel Fest

The morel fest is back.

The Midwest Morel Fest, once one of the most popular events in all of the Illinois Valley before it was discontinued when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, will be returning this year when the Ottawa Visitors Center sponsors its revival Saturday, May 4, in the Jordan block.

“People want this one back more than any other festival we’ve ever done,” Ottawa Visitors Center tourism director Donna Reynolds said. “The last few years we’d get so many phone calls: ‘Is it going to happen? Is it going to happen?’

“The first phone call in 2024 wanted to know if the Morel Fest is going to happen. It’s just floored me the interest people have shown. We decided to see what we could do about that, and now it’s coming back.”

There will be a botanical market from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., during which vendors will be able to sell fresh morels but only after they are inspected and deemed safe by morel expert Tom Nauman and his associates.

And because it falls on the week before Mother’s Day, there will be a crafters market as well.

But the main focus of the event, Reynolds said, is the educational hunt, once again led by Nauman, the man she refers to as “Mr. Mushroom.”

Owner and operator of Morel Mania Inc. in Magnolia since 1993 and a certified mushroom inspector in three states, Nauman will teach a class from 8 to 8:30 a.m. on what to look for on a morel hunt. Then, at 8:45 a.m., he and some fellow experts will take groups out by bus to hunt in wooded areas near Ottawa, with one guide assigned for every 15 to 20 people signed up.

Nauman, whose business year-round sells only dehydrated mushrooms, has been an integral part of the morel’s popularity in the area since the first festival in 1996 in Magnolia.

When the event got too big, it moved to Henry for three years before it outgrew that venue, too.

After skipping 2010, Nauman was contacted by the Ottawa Visitors Center, and the festival was moved to Ottawa, where it thrived until the pandemic in 2019.

“I’m excited about it,” Nauman said. “I’ve been getting a lot of calls, too, wondering when it was coming back. I’m aging as we speak, but I’m still able to get around well enough to really enjoy this – to take people out into the woods, show them what to do and why. … All we need is for Mother Nature to cooperate, but this is the right time of year.

“Mushroom hunting is 80% luck and 20% knowing how to get lucky,” he said with a chuckle. “The 80% is between you and karma. The other 20% I can help with.”

Even if morels are judged safe, Nauman urged people who have never eaten morels to be cautious and sample them at first because 1 in every 200 people is allergic, the same ratio as with strawberries and radishes.

“A friend of mine says every mushroom is edible, some of them only once,” Nauman said. “I say some have enough nutrition to last you the rest of your life, which may be only eight hours.

“That’s the most important thing we do – the education. We stress morels because once you know what a morel tastes like, you’ll know if it’s a true morel. To me, the flavor of other edible mushrooms is cardboard. Morels are steak. It has a wonderful woodsy taste that just can’t be matched.”

For information about the event, see the Ottawa Visitors Center webpage at visitottawail.com, or for more about the classes or to make purchases, contact Nauman at 815-866-0319 or tom@morelmania.com.