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Dec. 5th, 2003 02:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urocyonI happened across a publication from the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, entitled "11 Reasons to Eat Foraged Foods". Though I'm already a big believer in doing so, I was curious to see their stated reasons.
I almost wished I hadn't looked. Surely some of the authors' arguments are valid, but they are a good example of unnecessary complication, to my mind. I am not at all sure that I would find these persuasive reasons to begin eating wild foods, were I not doing so already. Though the first statement is, "Establishes a connection with place: this project offers people an alternative relationship with nature; people as part of nature, eating what our region produces naturally and seasonally," it sounds very much like these were written by--not just for--people who are rather divorced from the natural world.
What reasons would I present? I hadn't particularly thought about it, but here are some obvious omissions, off the top of my head:
1. Wild foods often taste wonderful.
2. By investing very little time and no money, you can have lots of top-quality, fresh food. This is particularly helpful as produce prices continue to rise.
3. Something edible and tasty is available almost everywhere.
4. They provide variety in your diet, great for both flavor and nutritional purposes.
5. Gathering vegetables, fruits, and nuts can be very relaxing (aside from the occasional run-in with deep mud, biting insects, or venomous snakes, depending on location--just to be fair).
6. Though it's more important to some than others, I will reiterate the point--one of the better ones--of being able to eat the freshest, most local foods in season.
Especially for those with little or no prior knowledge, books on edible wild plants are your friends.
I almost wished I hadn't looked. Surely some of the authors' arguments are valid, but they are a good example of unnecessary complication, to my mind. I am not at all sure that I would find these persuasive reasons to begin eating wild foods, were I not doing so already. Though the first statement is, "Establishes a connection with place: this project offers people an alternative relationship with nature; people as part of nature, eating what our region produces naturally and seasonally," it sounds very much like these were written by--not just for--people who are rather divorced from the natural world.
What reasons would I present? I hadn't particularly thought about it, but here are some obvious omissions, off the top of my head:
1. Wild foods often taste wonderful.
2. By investing very little time and no money, you can have lots of top-quality, fresh food. This is particularly helpful as produce prices continue to rise.
3. Something edible and tasty is available almost everywhere.
4. They provide variety in your diet, great for both flavor and nutritional purposes.
5. Gathering vegetables, fruits, and nuts can be very relaxing (aside from the occasional run-in with deep mud, biting insects, or venomous snakes, depending on location--just to be fair).
6. Though it's more important to some than others, I will reiterate the point--one of the better ones--of being able to eat the freshest, most local foods in season.
Especially for those with little or no prior knowledge, books on edible wild plants are your friends.
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Date: 2003-12-05 08:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-06 08:59 pm (UTC)Foraging
Date: 2003-12-05 10:20 am (UTC)Re: Foraging
Date: 2003-12-07 05:02 am (UTC)My grandfather used to bring in some of the most wonderful treats when he'd go hunting, which I suspect he used as as an excuse to go hiking around with his dogs at least half the time, anyway. I wish I knew where to find a lot of those things, like
My grandfather used to bring in some of the most wonderful treats when he'd go hunting, which I suspect he used as as an excuse to go hiking around with his dogs at least half the time, anyway. I wish I knew where to find a lot of those things, like <a href="http://newcrop.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1993/v2-500.html>chinquapins</a>; he didn't get a chance to show me very much of that sort of thing before he got sick. (From the distribution map, we do seem to be in the middle of a very high concentration of chinquapin bushes--the dense western cluster--but I haven't run across any when they've been recognisable as such, at least.) Yes, I got slightly sidetracked on chinquapins--as I will tend to do in general--but they're remarkably tasty. *g*
Most of my foraging activities tend toward the mundane, and not as frequent as I'd like. Green leafy things like dandelion, chicory, wild lettuces, dock, poke shoots, nettles, and similar in spring. Sometimes asparagus if we find a good stand (a student apartment complex was built right on top of the closest reliable source--and surprise!--it floods about every year, set down right in the river bottom there). As for the vaguely asparagus-like, occasionally fern fiddleheads or shoots of knotweed. The knotweed may not exactly be wild or native, but there was an apparently indestructible stand behind the house when we moved in, and I get some perverse glee out of eating the stuff.
Later on, there are the mushrooms, which I should get out more often and pick. Drying some would be a good idea--I've always just tended toward the "feast on mushrooms until I don't want to see them for another year" approach. I've never gotten out and dug <a href="http://www.main.nc.us/yancey/Ramps/ramps_or_wild_leek.htm">ramps</a>, mainly because they don't grow so well right in the valley here, but keep meaning to find some, or at least go to one of the ramp festivals.
In summer, it's mostly berries and some herbs. We usually make a few trips after several types of raspberries (partially due to slightly different ripening times) and after blackberries. There don't seem to be as many wild strawberries as there used to be, unfortunately. I used to help my other grandmother pick strawberries and wild grapes for jams and jellies (besides cramming half the berries in my mouth as I went). She also used to take me picking blackberries when I was little, toting a shotgun against rattlesnakes. (Yes, if they're already startled by your approach, then you further surprise them where they've hidden from you in the brambles, they may well try to strike.) Not too many people can say that, I'd imagine. :) I'm not nearly so herpetophobic, nor do I choose such snaky places to go berrying, so I hardly find that a necessary accessory. The various, mainly crab-type apples and Seckel pears are great too, though we haven't gone out and gotten any in years. I keep meaning to collect more herbs than--continuing from spring--mint, catnip, yarrow, and sometimes mullein (all super-easy to identify). I usually keep away from jewelweed, a type of impatiens which is useful in many of the same ways as aloe, since it generally grows in the middle of poison ivy.
Re: Foraging (continued, by Rachel the Verbose)
Date: 2003-12-07 05:03 am (UTC)Really, I don't gather as much as I'd like to. The beverage-of-choice and sandwich approach might make excursions even more pleasant. :)