 |
| Once a person gets
beyond their preconceptions about gathering weeds and eating them, he or
she will often become an enthusiastic fan of foraging. Foraging
will develop into a pastime that can be enjoyed on walks in the
city or country, or even while driving along back roads. Kids love to do
it.
Free Edible Weeds and Forest Foods The foraging season begins at different times in different parts of the country. Northeasterners will have to wait until at least March to find winter cresses and dandelions springing up. The greater rainfall in many parts of the East assures a steady crop of edible greens right up to the October frosts. Later in the year, edible flowers and buds join greens and late fall offers wild grains and nuts. The tenets of the modern day movement is qualified by the weeds themselves. These weeds can be found dually in divergent cultures and in suburbanites' backyards. "Wild edible weeds" were eaten in medieval England, and modern France, Ireland, Ukraine, and all around the world. Due to the nature of invasive species and global movement, plants have traveled with colonists and immigration. Nettle soup is commonly eaten as a supper in parts of Europe, same as sorrel soup, except that the latter is more prominent in France than the former, where it is known as soupe ŕ l’oseille. Dandelion and burdock is a still manufactured traditional soda drink drunk in the UK. Absinthe is a traditional alcoholic spirit beverage made out of mugwort in the United Kindgdom. In South Korea mugwort, known as ssuk, is eaten as a vegetable. Burdock root too, in South Korea and other parts of East Asia, is eaten. In French burdock is called bardane. Popular Spring Season Edible Weeds for Foraging in the Northeast - Nettle, dandelion, curled dock, Broad-leafed Aster, Japanese Knotweed. Japanese Knotweed is a designated noxious and invasive weed in the U.S. But it is tasty. Never bring it into your garden, and check your clothing after gathering, to be sure you're not transporting seeds or pieces of stem into your yard. Foraging Nuts, roots, seeds There are more than 60 species of oak trees in North America, and every one of them produces edible acorns. These wild food sources are abundant across much of North America Oaks. All acorns (Quercus species) are edible, though some are a good bit sweeter than others. However, if you simply shell one of the seeds and take a bite, it’s likely that you’ll immediately be turned off by the very astringent, burning quality typical of most oak nuts. Boil the nuts, changing the water frequently, until the flavor appeals to you. Once they’re leached, the acorns can be eaten raw, toasted, added to stews, or pounded fine and mixed with wild-grain flours to make bread. They’re a valuable source of proteins and carbohydrates that’s available from early fall until well into the next spring. That's why squirrels gather so many. And acorn sprouts can be prepared in the same ways as the nuts themselves, or in the case of most white oak species, they can be eaten right off the ground. That's my kind of foraging. Grasses. Of the many grasses found in North America, all but a few are edible, with their seeds being the best part. However, it’s best to select grasses with large seed heads or clusters, since trying to collect small ones would likely be a waste of energy. The seeds should be dried and parched, then winnowed to remove the chaff. The kernels can then be toasted and eaten plain, added to stews, or ground into flour for bread. Some of the best, safest, and most widely available grasses are crabgrass, goose, foxtail, blue, rye, orchard, wild oats and millet. You can actually grow some of these grasses in the garden. They're quite ornamental and add texture and a zen or coastal feel. Pines. These trees offer a wide assortment of treats that are all easily collected and prepared. You can, for instance, add the pollen to stew as a thickener and to bread for flavor. And if you heat the cones gently by a fire until they open, the seeds can be easily extracted. These can then be eaten raw, parched and winnowed, or shelled and baked — depending on the species — and added to soup and bread. You can also dry the inner bark of pine or spruce (Picea species), and add it to stew and bread.Cattails. The cattail (either Typhalatifolia or T. angustifolia) can be utilized at almost any time of the year, because at each stage of its life cycle it has a number of edible parts. For example, you can mash the root up in cold water to separate the soluble starches, and — once these have settled, and the fibers and water have been removed — add the material to stew or mix it with other wild flours to make bread. The new shoots can be eaten raw, and those up to a foot tall may be prepared like asparagus. The head, before it emerges, can be cooked and eaten like corn on the cob. Finally, it’s possible to collect cattail pollen for use in soup or as a flour. If you have an ornamental pond or bog garden, you can easily find dwarf varieties to grow in pots in the water, or in water in buckets along the edges of your water feature. Waterlilies. Almost all waterlilies (Nymphaea and Nuphar species) are edible. The young, unfurling leaves and unopened buds can be prepared as a potherb. The seeds can be parched, winnowed, and ground into a nutritious flour, and the potato-shaped tubers of the tuberous waterlily (N. tuberosa) can be dug from the mud and prepared like potatoes. Two of the more common edible varieties are the yellow pond lily and the fragrant pond lily. Be careful to collect plants from pollution-free waters.Arrowhead. - marsh
plant (Sagittaria species) Medicinal Flowers that also grow wild as forage in some regions Calendula (Calendula officinalis) Easy to grow in cool weather, and bloom for weeks or months if you remove seed heads before they mature. Many cooks snip a few calendula petals into eggs or rice as “poor man’s saffron,” and chickens fed calendula flowers lay eggs with darker yellow yolks. Calendulas make great cut flowers, but their greatest use may be as topical oils or creams for burned or injured skin. In a recent study of 254 breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy, calendula ointment proved superior to the most widely used prescription product for preventing radiation burns. These latest findings are among a growing number of studies that validate calendula’s ability to help heal injured skin. Sweet Alyssum (Lobularia maritima) When Michigan State University entomologists counted beneficial insects on 46 plants, sweet alyssum outperformed all but one native plant (boneset) and bloomed longer than any of its competitors. Integrated pest management programs in California, Colorado and Wisconsin also recommend sweet alyssum as a plant for pest-prevention purposes, but attracting hoverflies and other beneficials is only one of this flowers talents. Sweet alyssums fine texture and spreading habit make it ideal for edging beds or planting with other flowers in containers — and heirloom, open-pollinated varieties are especially fragrant. Sweet alyssum seems to be most fragrant in the morning. Most gardeners agree that its aroma is similar to honey or beeswax. In many climates, sweet alyssum reseeds well, but it never becomes weedy. It grows best in cool weather but may die out in humid heat. That's how mine met its end. Ammi (Ammi majus, A. Visnaga) Beneficial insects are attracted to plants with umbels (clusters of flowers with stalks in the shape of an umbrella), like dill and fennel When Egyptian researchers doused two species of snails with an ammi brew, many were killed and those that survived laid far fewer eggs. Ammi can reseed, especially in warm climates, though its not as invasive as Queen Anne's lace. Nasturtiums - These also turn up on many lists of deer-resistant plants, and German researchers have found that nasturtium leaves and immature seed capsules contain a rare sulfur compound called glucotropaeolin that has antibacterial properties - something known to the native people of Peru, who have long used nasturtium as a medicinal plant. Nasturtium leaves and flowers are edible. Softly fragrant nasturtium flowers have a mild peppery-sweet flavor, but the leaves are much spicier. They taste like watercress and contain 10 times the vitamin C found in most types of lettuce. Sunflowers - European explorers in America quickly recognized the value of sunflowers, which became a popular crop in 19th-century Russia. At the time, religious rules forbade the use of common cooking oils during Advent and Lent, but sunflower oil wasnt named in the scriptures. As a result, Russian plant breeders created productive varieties that turned oil-producing sunflowers into an important commodity crop. Goldenseal and Ginseng can often be found in woodland settings. Wild Mushroom Foraging Mushroom hunting, mushrooming, mushroom picking, mushroom foraging, and similar terms describe the activity of gathering mushrooms in the wild, typically for culinary use. This practice is popular throughout most of Europe, Australia, Japan, Korea, parts of the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent, as well as the temperate regions of Canada and the United States.
Many field guides on mushrooms are available and recommended to help safely distinguish edible from the many poisonous mushrooms. A spore print is a mushroom identification technique commonly used by mycologists and mushroom hunters to identify the genus of a specimen and differentiate between similar looking species. Knowing where and when to search for mushrooms is an important identification skill that takes practice. Most mushroom species require specific conditions. Some species only grow at the base of a certain type of tree. Finding a desired species that is known to grow in a certain region can be a challenge. Mushroom hunting is associated with
significant health risks if done without caution. Common safety advice includes:
Many mushroom guidebooks call attention to similarities between species, especially significant if an edible species is similar to, or commonly confused with, one that is potentially harmful. Examples:
Mushroom Festivals The popularity of mushroom picking in some parts of the world has led to mushroom festivals. The festivals are usually between September and October, depending on the mushrooms available in a particular region. Back to Foraging Pennsylvnia and the northeast
Article May 7, 2022 USDA National Nutrient Database, visit
this page.
Design, graphics,
articles and
photos ©2022 marysbloomers.com™ |
