Figs are beginning to ripen

In New Orleans fig trees grow everywhere... often in people's yards, on private property, but also on public street corners and other public spaces. Right now, many figs are still green, but some are beginning to turn purple or bright yellow––a sign that they are ripe for the picking.

You can recognize fig trees pretty easily by their large, green palmate leaves (and, of course, by the fruit itself).

As I noted in a previous blog post, you can dehydrate the leaves and make a delicious, healthful herbal tea from them. You can also eat the figs raw, right off the tree (though it's better to wash them first, just to be safe). The sweetest figs I've found growing in New Orleans ripen to a soft purple.

These have a sweet, light taste and a rich texture, almost like biting into a ripened peach.

My absolute favorite way to eat foraged figs, however, is to partially dehydrate them. I put them in my food dehydrator just long enough that they are warm and beginning to ooze some of their sweet liquid, and then I eat them. The short (about 1-2 hours) dehydration makes them taste sweeter.

If I buy figs, I tend to buy them dried––they taste sweeter and keep longer. I also cook with dried figs rather than raw ones. One of my favorite recipes is a slow-cooked pot roast with dried figs. You can find the recipe here (just substitute dried figs for the dried fruit). Very healthy and delicious.

Happy foraging!

Foraging for Yellow Wood Sorrel

My first encounter with yellow wood sorrel wasn't in the wild, but at Epiphany Farm-to-Fork restaurant in Tuscaloosa, where I'm certain the chef used some in a dish. Yellow wood sorrel is identifiable by its clover-like leaves and small yellow flowers. It visually complements a dish yet also has a delicious taste.

In the wild, you can usually find it throughout the U.S. and in other parts of the world in forest, woods, or other areas with lots of shade. I found a ton of it when hiking the trail around Lake Lurleen in Tuscaloosa. Many people describe the taste as lemon-like, but to me and my friend Joya it has more of a sour-apple, tangy taste. It's really delicious, and a good addition to salads or other dishes. It provides a bit of nice texture and that unexpected tanginess.

Yellow wood-sorrel also has health and medicinal benefits, many of which are outlined on Harrison Murray's blog "Bushcraft." It's high in Vitamin C, and it also has diuretic and cooling properties. Murray cautions that it should be eaten in moderation, though, because it's high in potassium oxalate and oxalic acid.

In small amounts, it should be safe, healthy, and delicious. The main challenge (as with dandelions) is simply getting it from the ground to your table before it starts to wilt!

Foraging for Ginkgo Nuts

Foraging for ginkgoes is a stinky business. You've seen ginkgo trees - they have those lovely green fan-shaped leaves. But you might not have seen their fruit, mainly because most landscapers choose to plant the male trees (which have no fruit and don't smell) as opposed to the female trees (which have the smelly fruits).

You will likely smell the fruiting ginkgoes before you see them. They grow all over the Quad at the University of Alabama, where my foraging venture this month has taken place. To forage for ginkgoes, you should first put on latex gloves. The nuts are encased in the pulpy fruits, which can give you an allergic reaction (a skin rash kind of like you would get from poison ivy). So practice safety! Look for the fallen ginkgo fruits on the ground around the tree, and disregard any fruits that have large holes or tears. They should be slightly wrinkly in texture.

Push the seed, or nut (technically a drupe) out of the pulp, and place it into a bag. Rather than leaving a mass of smelly, nut-less pulps on the ground, I tend to put the discarded pulps in a second bag - you can throw it out or, ideally, compost it.

Once you have collected enough nuts, wash off all of the remaining pulp (you can also discard the gloves at this point). Wash thoroughly.

You must roast the nuts - ginkgo nuts are not edible raw. Leda Meredith and Wildman Steve Brill recommend roasting at 300 degrees for 30 minutes, but I recommend longer, about 45 minutes. I should caution you that your entire home will smell like cheese.

When you finish roasting the nuts, they look a little like pistachios (but that's not how they taste). You will open them similar to the way you open pistachios, however - except that there's one extra step.

Once you've cracked open the shell, the nut will still have a thin peel - similar to a roasted peanut. It's edible, but I tend to take them off.

Ginkgo nuts have an interesting taste. My foraging companion and I decided they taste like something between an almond and swiss cheese. The texture is also between these two things - though closer to swiss cheese. They are extremely healthy. Ginkgoes are very low in fat and can lower cholesterol. They've been shown to promote higher brain function and help prevent memory loss. They're rich in antioxidants. However, health professionals warn that children should not eat more than 5 nuts a day, and 10 for adults (some say 8) to avoid "ginkgo poisoning" (an upset stomach in most cases), though I will say I ate about 15 and felt fine. I ate these 15 before reading about ginkgo poisoning, however, so that's my excuse.

Happy foraging!

We can eat dandelions, but do they taste good?

Not really.

That is, not by themselves, pulled fresh out of the ground.  The greens have a bitter taste that I personally like, but I imagine most people won't. If pulling dandelions up from the ground and eating them is your first taste of wild edible foraging, you will probably be disappointed.

Now that being said, once you add dandelion greens to a salad, they enrich and embolden the flavor.

Fresh dandelion greens on top of leftover corn, tomato and eggplant salad

I tried picking some dandelion greens, washing them, and adding them to my leftovers of a flavorful vegetable salad (prepared by dear friends Andrew and Yelani), and the mix of the bitter greens with the sweetness of the corn and tomatoes was a perfect pairing.

Harvesting dandelions has so many benefits. They're weeds, so you're not harming a species by yanking a few of them out of the ground. They're a forager's dream in that you can use multiple parts of the plant. And they're extremely healthy.

The younger leaves are less bitter and can be added raw to salads and sandwiches (wash them first!).

Unopened flower buds can be fried or boiled.

You can make wine out of the flower petals.

You can blanch the leaves for cooking (just add a little olive oil).

You can make tea from the leaves, roots, and flower petals (don't use the whole flower head).

You can make dandelion coffee out of the taproot of the plant.

For more on making tea and coffee from dandelions (and preserving any leftovers), the Forager's Harvest blog has a very helpful entry.

The health benefits: dandelions have lots of vitamin A, calcium, and potassium. They can help with weight loss, improving memory, and PMS (in tea form). Dandelion is also a diuretic. For more on the nutrition and health benefits of this miracle weed, check out the Edible Wild Food blog.

For now, I'm going to stick with eating the greens. Something to bear in mind: pick dandelion greens right before you're planning to use them, if you're eating them raw. They will begin to wilt in your hand within seconds after picking them, so it's not the kind of plant you want to pick early on your foraging walks.

Foraging and Delayed Gratification

One of the frustrating things about foraging: most foraged plants are seasonal. Granted, this means that you can find some edible plants at any time of the year to harvest, but it also means that the edible plants you want to eat may not be ready for a while.

I have seen several lush fig trees with small green figs blooming on street corners throughout uptown - but they are ripening slowly. Today I spotted some furry green pecans growing in the university area... these won't be ready until fall.

I've also seen canna growing all over the city (mostly in private yards, but in some public spaces too). The beautiful red canna flowers may be blooming now, but foragers typically harvest the young rhizomes (horizontal roots), not the flowers - and these shouldn't really be harvested until the fall.

Canna growing along the street in the Riverbend area

Finally, to my surprise, I saw a ginkgo tree - according to the USDA site, these don't even grow here! In the fall, when the fruits fall to the ground, you can remove the seeds from the squishy fruit (with gloves), wash them, bake them, shell them, and fry or boil the nuts. Very healthy and delicious.

But for now, I have to wait.

Ginkgo in the Black Pearl

The Eat the Weeds blog has some helpful information for harvesting and enjoying ginkgo, if you're so inclined.

New Orleans' volatile weather adds another challenge to a by-the-book forager: many things ripen before or after they're supposed to according to nature guides or other informational sources.

I've noticed that some trees are already sprouting bunches of large bananas, while some are just beginning to flower. Kumquats are supposed to ripen in colder weather, but I've seen them growing all over uptown.

My personal strategy is just to track the things I want. You can find maps online of different cities and the location of various edible plants - for example, this one from Atlanta shows where you can find different fruits on a map of the city, and it wisely cautions foragers not to trespass. As you locate accessible wild edible plants, you can track them in this manner - and you won't forget where you saw a plant you're hoping to harvest.

Happy foraging!

Bamboo, Oyster Mushroom, and Fish Stir Fry Recipe

Harvest of Oyster Mushrooms by Rudi Ardiansyah

Gilled underside of my oyster mushrooms

Bamboo and oyster mushrooms grow all over the place in New Orleans, and the rain we're currently seeing means it's a great time to "mushroom hunt" (I recommend the trees along the river) and to look for new, tender bamboo shoots.

I talked a bit about the health benefits of bamboo in my last blog, so I will focus more on oyster mushrooms here and then give a yummy stir-fry recipe at the end.

The first thing you should know (and that I learned): mushroom hunting is dangerous - if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. Some species are deadly, and others aren't deadly but will still make you very sick.

I know what oyster mushrooms look like because I have had a friend I trust with the knowledge point them out to me on multiple occasions, and I have seen him cut them off a tree, prepare them, and cook them, and I've eaten them with no dangerous results. Whole Foods also sells oyster mushrooms. Don't rely on photographs alone - either harvest them with someone whose knowledge you trust, or buy some and get familiar with the texture and varying sizes.

In Backyard Foraging, Ellen Zachos advises novice foragers to avoid mushrooms with gills (instead focusing on pored and toothed mushrooms. Deadly mushrooms tend to have gills. Unfortunately for beginners, oyster mushrooms also have gills.

The Recipe

These mushrooms are delicious and meaty. When I harvested some, along with the bamboo shoots, my partner and I decided to make a stir-fry. Here is our recipe (for 2 people):

Two small to medium size white fish fillets (we used tilapia)
Some bamboo shoots, boiled for 15 minutes and peeled with pointy ends cut off (I had about a half cup; anywhere from 1/3 cup to a cup is fine)
Some oyster mushrooms (we had about a cup)
Half an onion, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
Pinch of ginger powder (or 1/4 tsp minced or grated ginger)
Pinch of salt
1/4 ground black pepper
Garnish: black sesame seeds and scallions

Stir fry the mushrooms, bamboo shoots, onions and garlic in some olive oil, adding a dash of either minced ginger or ginger powder (which is what we used), salt, and fresh ground pepper. (You can adjust the seasoning measurements according to your taste preferences.)

Lightly sauté the fish filets in olive oil in a separate pan; then slice and briefly toss with the other ingredients.

Serve garnished with black sesame seeds and chopped scallions (if you have them).

Enjoy a healthy, nutritious and tasty meal.

Harvesting and cooking bamboo

Bamboo shoots ready for harvesting. Photo by Leonora Enking

One of the books I came across when I first started reading about foraging was Ellen Zachos's Backyard Foraging. While Samuel Thayer's book focuses on venturing out into the woods or swamp to forage, Zachos's focuses more on plants you likely already have for ornamental purposes.

Zachos lists bamboo as one of these edible plants. Foragers should harvest the young shoots (which look a little like asparagus), about 6-12 inches tall.

In New Orleans, bamboo grows all over the place - in front and backyards of uptown homes, along the canals in Gentilly and the Lower Ninth Ward, in storefront displays and along the river. I came across a grove in public domain uptown and harvested a couple shoots to sample the flavor.

Don't eat the shoots raw. Zachos cautions that "some species contain a toxic cyanogenic glycoside called taxiphyllin" (31), which foragers can remove by boiling the shoots.

To prepare: cut off the tips of the shoots, slice gently through the outer skin (just the surface), and boil the shoots until tender. Remove the shoots and cool. Peel the layers and slice the core.

After this process, I tried stir-frying the shoots with a little butter and salt. They were yummy! When I harvest more, I will try mixing them with honey-garlic chicken and cashews. You can also add the shoots to salads, rice, or whatever suits your fancy.

Bamboo is very nutritious. It is high in fiber and rich in protein. Various studies have revealed other medicinal and health benefits: bamboo can help prevent cancer, aid in weight loss and improved digestion, and treat hypertension, hyperlipemia, and hyperglycemia.

As an added foraging benefit, bamboo is considered an invasive species, so you don't have to feel guilty about harvesting the shoots. It will keep spreading.