Do you forage?

Ive foraged before foraging was cool. A friend and I always can be flound , in the spring, hunting for morels. We have our special sites and times for optimal cropping. Morels are super choice of the shroom family. Also ramps in the spring. The whole family used to go up to the blue mountains for highbush blueberry picking and along our fence rows for wild blackberries.
In Maine, we go after mussels and clams.

I read the article and was surprised at how much people seem to have forgotten in a few decades

I never set out to forage, but sometimes I'll nibble on a few leaves of lamb's quarter. We have Mormon tea around here, but it's uncommon enough that I would feel guilty chewing on it.

I used to forage for wild mushrooms regularly when I was living in the woods up in New Hampshire. Here in Hawaii I don't know which local species are edible so I don't take that risk. But I do forage for locally-grown bananas in the areas where some old farm has been abandoned. You'd be surprised how well those trees continue to produce after the hoomin' beans have left. I don't make a regular practice of foraging and don't intend it to be some kind of "green" statement. I just don't like to see perfectly edible food go to waste.

Yeah.
My fear is it'll all be taken as more yuppie foofoo when it is interesting for the rest of us.
Reminds me of an article I read maybe three years ago about a cook in Turkey, in the area across from Istanbul, whatever that is called. That guy, who had a small cafe, was very into local plants for food. Don't remember where I saw the article, too bad, but in his way he was similar to Redzepi. Just a guy, but very exploring.

I liked the bit about the tourists missing him - kid with a bicycle, wrinkled shirt. I'm one of the last remaining humans who rather likes wrinkled shirts.

I don’t for myself but I do for the tortoises, they live on a strict diet. Every now and then I pick a piece of cactus from my neighbor’s yard down the street, the tortoise love cactus.

Never tasted either..

can you say what lamb's quarter tastes like?

We used to always go 'blackberrying' when I was a kid but those paddocks have all been built on now and you can never be sure that blackberries along the side of the road haven't been sprayed. Luckily I have a friend with a lot of blackberries on her property so my kids haven't missed out on the joy of blackberry pie ...and all those prickles.
I'm not sure if it counts but my husband once brought home an octopus that he find on the rocks down at our beach. We were eating the damn thing for a week.

Oo0h, grow some Opuntia ficus indica... (prickly pear)..

Maybe a bit like spinach, only with a slightly salty taste. Truely, it's better in salads than spinach, but I don't actually harvest it. It's just kind of a munchie, and only worth picking in spring or very early summer. Edible the rest of the time, but it gets tough and bitter.

Never had any experience with octopods. But we did forage at the sea-shore for mussels at Hull, MA, when the tide was out. We were warned of 'red tide' and all that stuff but, properly prepared and steamed, those li'l mollusks were absolutely delicious. We'd pick up buckets of them when no one was looking. This was back in the '60s and '70s.

Ya, I gather prime time passes for leaves, re bitterness.

Even bitterness is a question - I often don't mind bitterness, can enjoy it, whereas I've had several friends who don't tolerate it, are near enraged by it. But even I admit it does take over.

I'm not the best taster, probably the worst, with close to no sense of smell. I insist I can taste a lot of differences but I'm not much of an identifier, say, re wine nuances.

Yeah, the spraying is a bitch.

Meantime, fresh blackberries in the market cost a zillion.

one of my favourite food shows River Cottage has lots of foraging in it, the chef/host started his tv career with a show called A Cook on the Wildside, with a lot of foraging and bartering for his supper

around here i always look for Asparagus gone to seed in the late summer/fall and then go to those spots in the spring to harvest a few new shoots, there's a ditch bank behind the house that has a pretty good supply, got about 2 pounds out it last year

in Tai Chi's part of the world, the road sides are full of scrub apple trees

http://www.rivercottage.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Cottage

mmmmm, foraged bananas..

<swoons>

Los Angeles, my home town, was built in the late 1800's in a semi arid desert and it is still a semi arid desert adapted to by newbies. (I could go on about that.) No native trees in the LA basin, though coast live oaks happened not far away, just over the mountains

A desert plant, common buckwheat, Eriogonum fasciculatum, used to cover the land, at least in certain areas. I assume it can be used as buckwheat, but I'll have to check some references besides those talking about it as a drought tolerant garden plant.
I'll have to see what Perry says -
Nah, he goes on but not about use as food.

They love prickly pear. They also love dandilions and I have to order seeds online and grow them in a few large pots, I can’t grow them fast enough but I have found a health food store that sells them. Most of their food is from what I forage from the yard, like hibicus leaves and flowers, another favorite of theirs.

Bookmarking.
Very interesting thread, osso!
Be back later!

When I lived in BC or visited the island we would go mushroom picking all the time, normally for morels and oysters, sometimes we'd get lucky and find psilocybin.. We would also pick black berries, salmon berries and wild strawberries. Sometimes we'd go for Shellfish - mussels, oysters, clams and crabs...
Here is AB I've picked apples, mushroom rings, saskatoon berries, raspberries and huckleberries. I've made wine out of foraged dandelion roots. I also love making horse radish found on old homestead properties.
I remember listening to a radio show once on foraging in NYC. It was really interesting all the plants that grew wild in the concrete jungle. Apparently they do tours of the city..

Just don't let them have any Oleander.... (not kidding)