ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Morchella esculenta as a nutraceutical and functional food, its habit, habitat, general characteristics, availability, biologically active compounds present and pharmacological and medicinal value. Mushrooms are spore-bearing fleshy fruiting bodies of fungus often present above the ground. Greeks and Romans included mushrooms in their diet. Romans considered mushrooms as the food of supernatural beings, despite the Chinese contemplating them as the elixir of the human being. Functional foods that are prepared from morel mushrooms are of high medicinal properties. The production of M. esculenta worldwide is 1.5 million tonnes of fresh weight and 150 tonnes of dry weight. India and Pakistan are the major morel-producing countries and each country has about 50 tonnes of dry morels. The pharmacological properties of Morchella species show its use in Chinese traditional medicine since 2,000 years and in Malaysia and Japan to cure several diseases.
