Avocado (ripe flesh)
Ripe avocado flesh is the soft, buttery, fat-rich pulp of Persea americana, eaten raw. It is low in acid, so it is a fresh ingredient that needs care in chilled dishes.
Mushrooms
Snyder's morel
Morchella snyderi, Snyder's morel, is a true morel found under conifers in western North America in spring. It is eaten only well cooked, because raw or undercooked morels can cause serious illness.
Overview
Snyder's morel is Morchella snyderi, a true morel of western North America. The California reference places it in soil rather than on wood. It is recorded as a culinary wild mushroom, and the catalogue gives its food use with one condition: it has to be cooked.
The species is not a mushroom to eat raw. The sources read for this page describe the cooking requirement as central to any use of the species, and the catalogue flags the same risk for all true morels.
Taxonomy
Morchella snyderi was described as new to science in 2012, together with thirteen other morels from the United States and Canada. The name is a research name in the catalogue, which makes no blanket check of current accepted names.
The catalogue notes that true-morel taxonomy often needs molecular confirmation, so records should keep the name as collected until it is checked.
Sources for this section
Ecology and season
The California Fungi reference describes Snyder's morel as growing in soil under unburned montane conifers, including Douglas fir, ponderosa pine and white fir. The season it gives is April through June.
The catalogue records the ecology as forest and woodland, with a lineage-dependent ecology. That means the habitat detail above comes from one regional reference and may not apply to every population.
Sources for this section
Food use and cooking
The California Fungi reference rates the species as edible and excellent, and advises that all morels be well cooked. The catalogue records the same condition: culinary use requires cooking.
The sources do not give a method beyond thorough cooking, and none is given here. The catalogue does not record a traditional preparation for this species specifically.
Sources for this section
Morel poisoning and the cooking requirement
A 2024 report in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report describes an outbreak in Montana in 2023. The species implicated was Morchella sextelata, a different true morel, and the report found that eating raw morels was more strongly linked to illness than eating cooked or partly cooked ones. It concludes that morels should be cooked before eating.
The report concerns M. sextelata, not Snyder's morel. No report read for this page links M. snyderi to an outbreak, so the outbreak evidence supports cooking as a precaution for all true morels, not a safety record for this species.
Sources for this section
Safety
The catalogue's caution is that raw or undercooked morels can cause serious poisoning, and that cooking reduces the risk but cannot be treated as an absolute guarantee of safety. True-morel identification often requires molecular confirmation.
Anyone collecting this species should have the identification confirmed by a specialist and should cook it thoroughly.
Places
Western North America
Documented use · Region evidenceRegional record from the catalogue; the California reference gives the habitat for California populations.
California
Documented use · Region evidenceHabitat and season as given by the California Fungi reference.
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Sources
MykoWeb (California Fungi)Identification · Ecology · Food use · Safety
California Fungi: Morchella snyderiGrows in soil under unburned montane conifers including Douglas fir, ponderosa pine and white fir, April through June.
Rated edible and excellent; all morels should be well cooked.
Cited in: Overview; Ecology and season; Food use and cooking
Centers for Disease Control and PreventionSafety · Outbreak
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Vol. 73, No. 10 (March 14, 2024)2023 Montana outbreak linked to Morchella sextelata; raw morels more strongly associated with illness than cooked or partly cooked; cook morels before eating.
Cited in: Overview; Morel poisoning and the cooking requirement; Safety
WikipediaTaxonomy lead
Morchella snyderiDescribed as new to science in 2012 with 13 other morels from the United States and Canada.
Cited in: Taxonomy
wildmushrooms.orgIdentification · Safety
Beginner identification class handout (supplied by the catalogue)Cited by the catalogue for the true-morel identification caution; not independently read for this page.
Cited in: Taxonomy; Safety