"wild foods" 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.

Many of the plants I read about and see can be used for tea. Some must be dried first, and some can be used dried or fresh. I would like to start with the most common ones first. These plants can be found almost anywhere. I found these three growing in my yard upstate.

While mowing the lawn Sunday, I smelled the familiar spicy-minty smell of ground ivy, also known as gill-over-the-ground, creeping charlie, catsfoot, and several other localized nicknames. Ground ivy is a small ground cover that frequently runs amok at the edges of lawns and around buildings. It has fan-shaped, toothed, opposed leaves, and produces small funnel-shaped blue to violet flowers. It grows with runners, and will appear like many small vines tangled in the other weeds that grow at the edges of landscaped areas.

Crushing and smelling the leaves will confirm that you have ground ivy. It has a distinctively mint-like odor. Tea from ground ivy should be made from dried leaves. I did some research on the uses for ground ivy tea. The medicinal uses are extensive.

This past weekend I took two good long walks. The first was along the Hackensack River, on a nice flat trail at Mill Creek Park in Secaucus NJ, and a second walk in Little Ferry, NJ in Losen Slote Park. Amy and Alec were away for the weekend, so please excuse my feeble attempts at photography.

Mill Creek did not have too much to offer that day, but is a great walk if you enjoy birdwatching. I did find these mulberries pictured here though. Mulberry trees in our area come in two varieties. Red mulberry, and white mulberry. The tree known as red mulberry is not quite as common in our area. The white mulberry is native to Asia, and was brought here in a failed attempt to produce domestic silk. Silkworms feed and spin on mulberry leaves. It has grown like a weed here, as many suburban homeowners have learned. Fortunately the berries are quite good.

Mulberry trees have leaves with an oval or lobed shape, sometimes with both shapes on the same tree. Small elongated fuzzy flowers in early spring are replaced with what looks like an elongated blackberry in late spring. The berries are just ripening now in this area. Now, a word of caution. White mulberries will sometimes be white, pink, red or almost black when ripe, but all of them are still referred to as white mulberries. This can be confusing and should be considered when harvesting because unripe mulberries will make you quite ill, but are not known to be deadly. It is because of this that I usually stick to the darker variety. A good way to be sure though is to harvest them by laying a sheet on the ground under the tree and giving a good shake. Only the ripe berries should fall.

A Scottish couple have just launched a company catering for 'wild food' lovers - WildFood.com stock 180 carieties of mushrooms, herbs and truffles. None of these products are cultivated as all is purchased direct from foragers. THese gatherers are mostly based in Scotland but some are as far away as Australia.

On the website you can find such culinary delights as a giant puffball, weighing 2.7kg (£40) and delicacies such as Sevruga caviar. Recipes are provided to make best use of these oftern seasonal products.