"Foraging-Curious"

I recently became fascinated (my friends would say "obsessed") with foraging after reading Jean Hegland's novel Into the Forest this past spring. In this novel, modern civilization has gradually shut down, and two teenage sisters cope with this shutdown in their home 20 miles from civilization, in the forests of Northern California.

One of the major turning points in this novel occurs when the younger sister starts using a book on plants to identify the edible and medicinal plants which pervade their surroundings, unveiling an endless supply of food, tea, and homeopathic medicine.

The survivalist aspect of contemporary foraging is perhaps its primary appeal to me. I binge-watch shows like Survivorman and Dual Survival not because I'm especially outdoorsy, but because I wish I were. I admire people who can grow their own food, hike the Appalachian trail, build fires without matches, and identify what plants are edible and what plants are poisonous.

My primary interest in foraging is just the knowledge base - I want to be able to identify edible plants, to know when and how to harvest them, to know how to prepare them, and to know their other benefits (medicinal, nutritional).

Foraging also appeals to me for both dietary and economic reasons. I spend $4.99 on organic blackberries, but they grow everywhere along the river in New Orleans, where I spend my summer. I spend roughly $6-$8 buying a box of tea, but I can make tea from the leaves of loquat trees, blackberry bushes, fig trees, and many other plants for free.

Many foraged foods have excellent health and nutritional benefits. In a recent article in The Atlantic , James Hamblin describes how researchers have compared the most popular diets (low-carb, paleo, Mediterranean, etc.) to determine which is the healthiest, and concluded that "real food" is healthiest. Hamblin cites Dr. David Katz: "If you eat food direct from nature... you don't even need to think about this. You don't have to worry about trans fat or saturated fat or salt - most of our salt comes from processed food, not the salt shaker. if you focus on real food, nutrients tend to take care of themselves."

Looking into some of the most available wild plants in my immediate neighborhood (loquats, dandelions, blackberries, plantains, rosemary, bamboo), I found that they have a wealth of nutritional and medicinal benefits - everything from beautifying skin to helping digestion to preventing cancer. Most are rich in vitamins and minerals as well as antioxidants. The list of benefits just goes on from there.

I live and work in Tuscaloosa, AL, yet I spend the summer with my partner in New Orleans, and I make frequent visits to Atlanta, so I plan to explore the edible plant life in all three of these cities.

I am learning about foraging from scratch, so what may be obvious to many people (or the equivalent of picking rosemary in your backyard to experienced foragers) is often very exciting for me. Actually, picking rosemary from my backyard is exciting to me.

Happy foraging!

Blackberries at the Fly. They were gone two weeks later.