My curiosity at this stage was limited to talking to my boyfriend about how cool it would be to know which plants were edible and which weren't. Then, for my birthday, he gave me Samuel Thayer's book The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants. I couldn't put this book down for the next couple of weeks. Here are a few things I learned:
1) When people use the term "foraging," they can mean any number of things.
Thayer uses this term to mean going into the wild and harvesting edible plants you would not, in most cases, find in the grocery store. We're not talking about rosemary growing along the sidewalk or blackberries growing along the river... we're talking about putting on waders to stomp around in the swamp for arrowhead rhizomes.
Other definitions of foraging might include simply finding free food (there is a dumpster-diving community, believe it or not... but it's not for me), or locating falling fruit in an urban landscape --knowing where banana trees or lemon trees are growing in a public space, for example.
2) Identifying plants is tough!
Some plants we identify naturally - most people, for example, can identify an oak, a pine tree, bamboo, or dandelions. But I'm not sure I'd be able to identify a pin cherry tree from among a line-up of other trees with red berries, even if it was bearing fruit.
I devoted a lot of time and research (both reading and walking around looking at plants) to the practice of identifying plants. This is an ongoing process.
I find field guides to be useful (for example, Edible Wild Plants - Peterson Field Guides), but even more useful was visiting the University of Alabama Arboretum in Tuscaloosa, where many plants and trees are labeled. I couldn't forage there, obviously, but it helped me learn the "tells" of certain plants and trees.
I also have a lot of terminology to learn in order to identify plants. Thayer provides a helpful glossary at the end of his book, providing illustrations and definitions for terms like "lenticels," "umbels," and "corm."
3) Harvesting wild plants can be as difficult as growing and tending your own garden.
Now, that's not universally the case. Some plants, like dandelion greens, are easy to identify and to harvest. But some are so challenging that for me, it's not yet worth it.
My friend Patrick was very excited when I told him that according to Thayer, wild rice grows all over the country in rivers and lakes. For a while he was eager to identify wild rice and try to harvest it (bear in mind, it retails for about $8 for a small bag). I then told him that according to Thayer, we needed a canoe to harvest it. We checked several different foraging websites, and the canoe seemed pretty essential to the process.
But the canoe was just the beginning. The rice season is usually less than 2 weeks on a particular body of water. That means you don't just have to have the canoe - you have to use it at the right time. You have to have "ricing equipment" - which includes "a canoe, a paddle, a pole, a pair of knocking sticks, a tarp, and gunnysacks" (128).
But let's just say you have all of this equipment, you harvest at the perfect time, and you knock a bunch of rice into your canoe and onto your tarp. Then you have to "finish" the rice, which means drying it to "make the chaff brittle," then rubbing and winnowing it, which seems like an incredibly tedious process. Then, of course, you have to cook the rice or store it.
Even for foods less difficult than wild rice, harvesting can be a challenge. You might have found a grapefruit tree, but do you know when, or if, it will bear fruit? New Orleans is rife with loquat trees, and the loquats are ripe now - but I can't reach 95% of them! Thankfully I can reach the leaves, which make a delicious tea.
You have to learn the seasons, which vary according to region, and it helps to have the right equipment. Thayer's book seems geared more toward the midwest and Pacific northwest. I have to adapt for the southeast.
4) There are varying levels of commitment in the foraging community.
How many people have a canoe? Thayer mentioned the canoe as though the reader would have one tethered in a pond behind her house. He also mentions other foraging tools of the trade -- a large shovel, trowel, and digging stick, containers, a berry hook, jelly bags, strainers, a food mill, a flour mill, nut picks, canning jars... you get the idea.
If foraging is an RPG, I have very little equipment and very few experience points. I imagine I'll accumulate more equipment as I accumulate more experience.
I have gone ahead and invested in a food dehydrator, which is the coolest appliance ever (and it's inexpensive and very easy to use). It helps me get foraged foods ready for storage and foraged leaves ready for making teas. Plus, I've also discovered that dehydrated prosciutto, mango, and bananas are all delicious.
5) There are unspoken "rules" of the foraging community.
Some of these concern safety, others the environment, and still others legality. More on these rules in a later post. I will go ahead and share the first and most important rule, however: to quote Thayer, "never eat any part of a plant unless you are 100% positive of the plant's identification, and certain that the part you intend to eat is edible in the condition in which you have harvested and prepared it" (23).
6) Do your research before attempting any adventurous foraging.
Thayer states (in bolded font): "if you need to use a book to identify a plant, you are not ready to eat it" (27). I'm comfortable with a handful of plants mentioned in his book, but for most of them, I have a lot of learning ahead of me.
For now, I'll continue taking exploratory walks, reading field guides and books on foraging, skimming foraging blogs, consulting the USDA and Geological websites to identify which plants grow in my region, and harvesting only those plants with which I'm already familiar.
Happy foraging!
 |
| Starting with what I recognize... like dandelions |
No comments:
Post a Comment