OT: Wild Foods

[itsflantastic]

I've been looking to cut my food expenses and eat more healthily and have been turning in this direction. I already have a handful of plants that I regularly collect but lately I'm expanding. So I'm heading out on my bike today for cattails and whatever else I can find.

What I want to know is....
Does anyone here forage wild food? Cattails? Acorns? Mushrooms? Elderberries? Wapato? I'm really curious!

[nighthawk]

ha.. wouldn't expect to see this on here..

..but yeah.. I do like eating wild food.

From your list, I've had wild mushrooms, cattails, and acorns.

..Cattails are interesting... very starchy.. probably better used as ground into a flour then as a "vegetable". Acorns are a total pain.. They contain tannins that need to be leached out. So cracking them all open, boiling them in water, changing the water, boiling them again, etc, etc. Maybe once a year it's fun/interesting.

Some of my favorites: burdock root, purslane, chickweed, lambs quarters, stinging nettles, miner's lettuce...

I'm hoping to do some more mushroom gathering this year, myself...

[gdw]

Apples. We live in an area which once was an orchard and there are still some trees left. I try to collect a batch before the birds and bears get them and dry them for future camping trips and morning oatmeal.

We used to collect fiddleheads, dandelion, wild berries -especially teaberry/wintergreen, and beechnuts when I lived in Maine if they were in season. Mussells were easy to find and quahogs would wash up on the beach after storms and are great for chowder. I no longer hunt but Bambi, Thumper, Rocky, and Bullwinkle were often on the menu too.

[oliver1850]

Lots of folks around here love black walnuts. I have butternuts in the yard as well. I only have one hickory that produces anything, and the nuts tend to be wormy. Very good if you can find clean ones, but lots of work as they're pretty small. Asparagus grows in the roadbanks. Searching for morels qualifies as a major sport in the spring. I also have wild grapes, black raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, mulberries, wild cherries, and what's looking like a huge yield of elderberries. There's a kid in the local running group who makes wine. I'm going to see if he wants the elderberries. Pics are black walnuts left, butternuts right, and immature elderberries.

[buldogge]

I've not gathered any wild food...but...I think it's very cool that you guys have.

I've always wanted to go mushroom hunting in the Ozarks...love me some morels!

Nice variety you have there BTW Mark!!

-Mark in St. Louis

[choricoff]

Near my family's cabin in northern Michigan I have picked morels, but it is very difficult to get enough for more than one meal, and I think the best time for pickin em is in late spring. I doubt that picking morels could really cut food expenses, but they taste great and it's fun biking and hiking through woods looking for them. The last time I went morel hunting I was with one other person and after 3 hours we had collected just enough to make a meal with.

Last week I was mountain biking in the same area and noticed a ton of blackberry bushes lining the trails which made for a great mid-ride snack. I went back with a plastic bag and collected what would have cost me $10-15 to purchase at a fruit market.

Ramps are a strongly flavored onion-like plant that grow in the woods and look like scallions sticking out of the ground. I know people who have picked them here in Michigan, and I saw some on a trip I took to Ontario.

[oliver1850]

For the meat eaters, things I've eaten (or seen eaten) around here include: deer, turkey, duck, goose, pheasant, partridge, dove, rabbit, squirrel, turtle, fish, and raccoon. I didn't try the raccoon. It was served at a hog roast and I stuck to that. The guy throwing the party fed some to his mom, but didn't tell her what it was, until after she'd eaten it. Not pretty. I've not yet had the opportunity to sample possum stew. It's good to have things in life to look forward to.

[oliver1850]

Last summer I got so hungry during a ride that I stopped and picked black raspberries until I couldn't find any more.

Ramps. I remember in grade school we used to go out during recess and eat the tops, just so we could get up close to someone later and breathe on them.

[itsflantastic]

My haul from today included a bag of wild grapes and a bag of elderberries, though the bush I found was hardly as full as the one in your picture. Perhaps the birds had gotten to them before me....

Q:
How do you know when elderberries are mature enough? This was my first time collecting them and they seemed small, though they tasted great.


I also found Wapato, but the roots were not quite big enough yet. Oh, and a whole bunch of tea berries and wintergreen just for fun.

I found Tartarian honeysuckle and for a moment thought it might be autumn olive. That was a bummer.

Other cool things from the trip: crazy mushrooms, lots of Indian Pipes (I love those!), blue heron, lots and lots of tiny frogs, spotted jewelweed, and oak galls from gall wasps.

Fun day :)

[rugbysecondrow]

A man walks up to a farmers house, knocks on the door and says to the farmer, "I see you have some honeysuckle in the field and I wanted to see if I could go back and try to get honey from it". The farmer, thinking the guy is nuts says, "sure, but there is no way you are getting honey from a honeysuckle". Sure enough, an hour later the man walks past the farmer with honey.

The next day, the same man goes to the same farmer and says, "When I was down yesterday, I saw you had some milkweed and so I wanted to see if I could fill these jugs with milk?". The farmer say, "you may be able to get honey from a honeysuckle, but there is NO WAY you are getting milk from milkeweed". Sure enough, the man walks past the farmer with full jugs of milk. The farmer is perplexed.

The next day, the same man goes to the same farmer and says, "When I was down getting milk from the milkweed yesterday I say you had some pussywillow..." the farmer interupts, "Just a minute, I need to go grab my coat."

[itsflantastic]

^^hilarious.

Here's a picture of the elderberry I brought back. not really enough to make anything out of but I'm going to play around and see what happens

[oliver1850]

Your berries are riper than mine.

[itsflantastic]

I only had about a cup and a half when all was said and done so I made some elderberry juice. It was great!

[itsflantastic]

If anyone is still interested in this thread.... :rolleyes:
Today on my bike ride I rode past a whole bunch of scarlet sumac. Since I had a backpack on I picked about 2 dozen and just made a drink from it. It's soooooo good. Like half/half lemonade ice tea with a hint of cranberry.

Rock!

[Dave B]

Your berries are riper than mine.


TWSS

[oliver1850]

If anyone is still interested in this thread.... :rolleyes:
Today on my bike ride I rode past a whole bunch of scarlet sumac. Since I had a backpack on I picked about 2 dozen and just made a drink from it. It's soooooo good. Like half/half lemonade ice tea with a hint of cranberry.

Rock!


I think we have staghorn sumac here. I wasn't aware it was useful, other than being colorful in the fall.

[Mr. Squirrel]

What I want to know is....
Does anyone here forage wild food? Cattails? Acorns? Mushrooms? Elderberries? Wapato? I'm really curious!

ah, squirrel. :rolleyes:

mr. squirrel

[johnnymossville]

We eat the occasional wild Mushrooms, Black Rasberries, Strawberries, Blueberries, ginseng from my Uncle, and my wife and I like wild Tiger Lily in soup.

Probably the best way to eat wild foods is to get a rifle and go hunting.

[Karin Kirk]

Staghorn sumac berries are tasty this time of year - I recall them fondly from NY. A nice tangy flavor. I think you don't actually eat them, you just suck on them or put them in a drink.

I made 7 jars of chokecherry syrup yesterday. It was kind of a lot of work because the seeds are large and you need to use a food mill to mash them down to pulp. But still, it's kinda fun.

Came across a nice stash of Serviceberries (Juneberries) on a hike last week. I don't eat too many because the animals need them more than I do.

Fun stuff though!

[William]

Probably the best way to eat wild foods is to get a rifle and go hunting.

Now you're talking!! You hear that rodent?!?! :D




William

[itsflantastic]

William - You going after the squirrels?

As for the staghorn sumac - http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/urban-forager-shrubbery-you-can-drink/

I didn't let it sit for hours, more like 40 minutes, and it turned out really tasty.