"WildEdibles" news and stories

My son Alec, who frequently tags along with Amy and me on our foraging hikes, is camping this week in upstate New York, with my wife Marti, and his cousin Colten. I received a picture mail message today around lunchtime which is displayed here. The caption in the text message read: Your son's catch. Complete with butter and garnish!

There are several plants I am familiar with that are considered weeds. Dandelion comes to mind instantly. We'll wait till fall to talk more about our little yellow lawn devils. I was shopping in the Union Square Greenmarket recently during a lunchtime walk, and amongst the multi-colored organic carrots and varietal greens, was purslane. Purlsane is a slightly succulent sprawling weed, with thick reddish stems. It radiates out, flat to the ground from a central root. I had seen this plant in my garden and flower beds before learning from one of my books what it was. Purslane is raised as a crop in other parts of the world, where it is used raw as a salad green, or cooked like spinach. Here we relentlessly pull it from the garden, and just throw it away. I had told a neighbor of mine that seemed to be overrun with the stuff to save it for me a few years ago.

• Kim Honey learns about all the edible food out there to eat in the wild, and the particulars of slaughtering bunnies.
• More reasons to love summer: urban farming and rare beets.
• Delight in the inner flesh of a dragon fruit.
• Forget that typical round stuff. Here's a recipe for square sushi!
• Mouth-watering chef delicacies in Quebec City.
• Cheap and tasty reds: Mezzomondo 2007 Sangiovese Merlot, Pascual Toso 2005 Merlot, and Concha y Toro Trio 2006 Merlot-Carmenère-Cabernet Sauvignon.
• The ins and outs of ceviche, and where to taste it in Toronto.
• Summertime white wines: Cantina di Gambellara Prime Brume 2006 Soave Classico, Flat Rock Cellars 2007 Riesling, Omaka Springs 2007 Sauvignon Blanc, Novas Winemaker's Selection 2006 Chardonnay/Marsanne/ Viognier, and Tawes Sketches of Niagara 2006 Chardonnay.

In continuing with the backyard wild teas, I can't let summer pass by without mentioning this wild lemonade substitute. Sumac grows like a weed in this country. It is a relative to the much hated poison sumac, but as the flowers give way to the fruit, you can't mistake this harmless, small tree for anything else.

The branches are fuzzy, hence the name of this variety. The fuzzy clusters of fruit are what we're after. Watch these from June through September and grab the red ones, as they ripen, but before the rain hits them and washes away the flavor. Soak a couple of clusters in a pitcher of ice-cold water in your refrigerator for one to two hours. Your taste buds will know how long. Keep the water cold to prevent bitterness. Strain the results through a fine strainer, or cloth, and serve sweetened. It has a very lemonade-like flavor.

Since these trees seem to grow almost anywhere, please be careful of pollutants and heavy traffic. I doubt anyone would be upset with you for over picking these giant weeds though. See you on the trail!

Brambles are in season! What are brambles? Raspberries, blackberries, dewberries, swampberries, boysenberries, cloudberries, black caps, and any other wonderful members of the rose family that produce an aggregate berry. A recent trip to Kingston Point Park in Kingston, NY, had us eating almost everything we could pick.

The berries that grew at the point were what the locals here commonly call black caps. These are wild black raspberries. They are usually found on upright, thorny, raspberry canes, and look like a slightly smaller version of the commercial variety. The taste is excellent.

Amy and Alec found a nice stand of wild red raspberries, looking much like commercial ones, and a few bushes of the odd, maple-leafed, purple-flowering-raspberry near Esopus, NY. These are also upright plants and easy to locate. You can spot them well in advance in the Spring with their small, white, flowers. The purple flowering raspberry has a very showy rose-like purple flower.

Blackberries, dewberries, and swampberries, grow along runners tangled in the weeds. These berries have larger aggregrate parts than the raspberry-like fruits, just like store-bought blackberries.