Posted on 04/18/2017 1:54:35 PM PDT by nickcarraway
"Wildman Steve Brill" served the audience dandelions, chickweed and onion grass during his presentation on edible weeds at the Scarsdale Public Library on March 31. Steve Brill has been foraging, or gathering wild foods, for over 35 years. Early on he was arrested and handcuffed by undercover park rangers for eating a dandelion in Central Park. Subsequently, after his educating the New York City Parks Department, they hired him to give public foraging tours in Central Park.
We dipped corn chips into a delightful pesto made with garlic mustard. Garlic mustard (scientific name Alliaria petiolata) came from Europe and parts of Asia and is invasive, aggressively taking over our forests floors by outcompeting the native forest plants that support our local ecology. Perhaps our eating non-native invasive plants can be part of a strategy to garlicmustard
Garlic mustard is great raw in salads, mixed with more mild greens. It's also good steamed, simmered, or sauteed.
help control them.
Steve's daughter Violet provided parts of the presentation with surprising knowledge and poise for a seventh grader. She has her sights on becoming an ornithologist as well as an expert forager.
The Bronx River-Sound Shore Audubon Society brought this delicious presentation to Scarsdale.
For recipes and information about foraging, his website is at www.wildmanstevebrill.com.
Actually came up with my screen name from his readings.....
I'd never go foraging in either place, but the concern that would keep me out of there would be because of the petrochemicals and other toxins from the trains and road vehicles, or up here in the northland, the chemicals they put on the roads in the winter. Maybe the people that live in cities develop some kind of immunity to that crap though. As for me, since I have a choice, I'd no more live where all those chemicals are in the air I'd breathe everyday than I'd go foraging in road ditches and railroad right of ways.
I love dandelions. Plentiful, easy to fix and 100% of the plant is edible...and really nutritious.
We used to make dandelion wine from the flowers. Never tried the jelly, though.
My Italian dad’s family ate dandelion salad during the Depression in Long Island. I hear they are very nutritious. Wish I had a real recipe for using them.
Those of us in the south with survive a collapse just fine, I hear that kudzu is edible :-(
When I was young there was a plant we kids all ate.
Kind of spindly, grew near foundations, rounded leaves like clover with yellow small flowers. We ate the plant whole and it was tangy tasting.
Never knew what it was, Anyone?
my great grand aunt lou made dandelion wine and brought it to family meals each year. It was the most attractive yellow color.
Kind of spindly, grew near foundations, rounded leaves like clover with yellow small flowers. We ate the plant whole and it was tangy tasting.
Never knew what it was, Anyone?
This stuff? Wood sorrel? We called it "sourgrass."
Yes exactly!
I haven’t seen it is many years.
Thank you !
Oh how neat!.....I couldn’t believe how sweet it was....but back then I think people were far more resourceful and patient to get things right....every thing mattered.
My mom raised us, after my dad died, by herself then....people worked very hard and gatherings were significant to families. Today I don’t think it’s quite so much. ...too any fluffy distractions occupy people otherwise.
interesting
I follow this guy and his travels around California. He eats a lot of weed edibles during his travels. He’s on Facebook too.
Purslane is marvelous for oral cancers or precancers!!!!! As good as the hideous steroid mouth swish liquid!! Yes, you can make a tincture or whatever out of it, but I just eat it right out of my friend’s yard. Season hasn’t started yet in SoCal. I am bringing some to my oral oncologist to show him, he is top of his field and interested. There are a few scientific studies. (Below link) And it tastes way better than dandelions (which I can’t eat unless I boil them, so bitter).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19585472
I have come to respect weeds after my friend started foraging and making teas and tinctures. Marijuana is a weed; I’ve seen it growing like one in Kathmandu. And it helps a lot of things too though I do not wish to get high.
You can eat the flowers of nasturtium too. But I love those spicy leaves.
“Tastes like wild hickory nuts.”
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