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.
vegetables
Purslane is delicious, tastes mild like lettuce.
Spring beauty tubers are good too but I’d rather enjoy the flowers than dig them.
Pokeweed you have to boil and drain.
Mullein tea and comfrey were my Aunt’s favs.
Redbud flowers and young pods are good.
Pollen from them is good to add to pancakes
Hickory hulls can be ground up to make a “hot chocolate” warm drink....but you have to limit yourself to a dixie cup full as it’s a laxative.
I miss the family gatherings more than anything. Occasionally I am able to replicate them. Recently had my son’s girlfriend’s family in for the official visit.
We sat at the table for three hours and chatted told stories and joked.
Families have to have a good sense of humor and be good storytellers to have fun in my book.
My own family didn’t turn out that way, but there are others hungry for connection, caring and fun, and I am working very hard to find and place that in my life.
File this away for future reference and hope you never need it, lol:
http://www.eattheweeds.com/kudzu-pueraria-montana-var-lobata-fried-2/
It’s actually a very useful, versatile plant, just don’t let it take root anywhere on your property, it grows a foot a day. I’ve watched an old rental house not too far away sit unoccupied for a couple of years awaiting destruction for a road widening, and it’s almost covered now, just a green vaguely house-shaped lump with a few peeks of siding or roof in the summer.
That’s awesome- thank you! I cut and pasted the info and the recipes into my files. Kudzu recipes, LOL, who would’ve thought?
That site is a treasure trove for all sorts of wild foods, explore some of the links. You might enjoy the native persimmon come early fall, I grew up eating persimmon pudding. You’ll have to race the critters to get any of them when ripe, though. Deer, raccoons and possums love them. Quite a lot of history associated with that tree, especially Civil War. Coffee substitute from ground seeds, stories of starved regiments stumbling upon persimmon trees with fruit still on them, saving them. You might find persimmon a little too sweet or you might not. The more successful recipes in my opinion use other fruits and nuts to balance that sweetness, some compare it to dates but to me it’s not quite like that, has its own taste. Be careful about which persimmons you pick and eat though, they ripen unevenly. Get one that isn’t completely ripe yet and you’ll really know the meaning of astringent, it’ll turn your mouth inside out, lol.
Many parts are edible!
Is that you, Euell?
I saw a big patch of ramps near the road into my neighborhood.
In your opinion, is harvesting Amaranth a pain in the butt?
I ask because it looks very labor intensive.
It grows in ditches here in Houston.
In New Mexico I ate some pine nuts
Yaelle, they make cannabis now that has no psychoactive properties.
It has all the other good stuff, though: palliatives, anti-inflammatories, etc.
That’s called hemp, isn’t it?
Wild Edible Plants of the Midwest PDF
https://web.extension.illinois.edu/mg/conference2012/files/Wild_edibles_Deb_Lee.pdf
https://midwesternplants.org/2015/03/12/99-edible-plants-for-the-midwest-forager/
In northern California wild strawberries grow on the beach. They are small and don’t look all that good but their flavor is unsurpassed.
It’s from an old Euell Gibbons parody. I think it was Henry Gibson.
No, it is not called hemp.
They began with modern, high strength cannabis, which as you know has lots of components besides THC that do a body good. Almost all of these components occur in other plants that are not prohibited.
These components are not psychoactive and are not considered controlled substances. The terpene Linolool, for instance: It is the thing in lavender that gives it its’ relaxing properties.
Growers used selective breeding to eventually reduce the amount of THC in their high end pot, and the end result is a product that can be given to children who suffer from uncontrollable seizures, without the risk of them getting “high”.
LOL. We let all the dandelions grow in our yard, because they are one of the first weeds that spring up, and they are a decent source of vitamin c. I also have a recipe on file to make dandelion wine. It’s a hard time’s file-ie prepper to use today’s buzz word.
It was a common and ordinary way of life for country folk back when I grew up. Hubby has that book Stalking the wild asparagus, and several others regarding wild edibles.
When we were in our twenties, he foraged every weekend and brought in wild stuff to sample-not from necessity, but as a hobby. Oldest daughter went with him on these forage trips, and had great fun.
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