FINE FORAGING: EARLY SPRING by Nancy Bubel First in a series on finding and preparing the best outdoor edibles of the season. (Country Journal // March/April 1991) Beyond packaged store foods, beyond farm markets, beyond even home garden produce, there is a great bounty of food growing all around us. Original food, you might call it. Wild food. It's there in the woods, along the hedgerows, throughout the fields, by the road, even at the edge of your garden, and it's good. Much of it grows and returns to the earth without ever reaching our tables. Unless you take the trouble to learn and look you may never know what you're missing. There are at least 25 wild foods that add sparkle to my family's meals throughout the year, I'm not talking about subsistence foraging -- eating to make do. We don't depend on acorns, or eat meals composed solely of wild greens. The wild foods we savor are seasonal treats. We eat only those that have especially rich, delicate, or savory flavor we couldn't find any other way. What's more appealing, wild foods grow without any attention from us. They're unsprayed, and they cost us nothing. These advantages appeal to our practical nature. At some deeper level, though, we're aware that, in gathering wild foods, we are really seeking -- and finding -- a closer relationship with the wonderfully varied land that surrounds and supports us. We feel in tune with the seasons, looking for each treasured berry, nut, or mushroom as its time comes due. And we notice subtle changes in our landscape as we search. Wineberries spread as cutover woods gradually grow shadier; fallen trees host mushrooms; microclimates encourage the earliest wild greens. Most of our foraging is done on our own land, but we occasionally make trips to pick berries on wild public lands where we know the crop is plentiful. We don't pick on privately owned land without asking permission. Of course, certain city and state parks are protected by no-picking laws. We have repeatedly picked each of the following wild foods because we know them, like them, and easily find them. For your own wild specialties, start by getting to know what grows in your neighborhood. Consult a reliable wild foods guidebook and learn to positively identify the scores of edible plants that are out there for the picking. The quest for wild delicacies can become an absorbing, satisfying, challenging, lifetime adventure. MARCH WINTER CRESS ( Barbarea vulgaris) is also called yellow rocket, wild mustard, upland cress, and spring cress. This is our earliest wild spring green. While March snow still banks the north side of the house, I'll find little clusters of cress in protected spots near the compost pile and berry bushes. We use cress in three stages. The first fresh clumps, well sweetened by freezing nights, make tender, mild-flavored salad greens. When the leaves grow a bit larger, I braise them or cook them in soup. Then, when the flower buds form (but before the yellow flowers open), I cook them in a small amount of water for five to seven minutes. The buds have a mild broccoli flavor. Once the plants are in full bloom and the weather turns warm enough to go out without your jacket, the winter cress season is over. Wild greens become distastefully bitter and are sometimes tough when eaten after they flower. Winter cress has smooth, rounded leaves with several small secondary lobes along its stem. The stem arises directly from the crown. Leaves are 3 to 7 inches long and blossom buds are 1/2 to 1 inch in diameter. You'll find winter cress in rich, moist ground. It often turns up in the garden, at the edges of perennial vegetable and berry beds, on sunny hillsides, near streams, and even in lawns -- always in a sunny, open space. DANDELION (Taraxacum officinale) As a child, I used to see women picking dandelions in the town baseball field behind our house. I considered the plants weeds and the pickers exotic. We kept to our peas and carrots and never tried the greens. Now each spring I watch eagerly for those first tousled crowns, craving their tangy freshness after a winter of bland fare. I snip them into noonday salads, beginning in late March here in south central Pennsylvania, until the plants flower and the leaves turn bitter. Late-blooming plants in less-sheltered places stretch the season. In October and November, tender new seedlings crop up at the edges of the kitchen garden and asparagus patch, sweetened by frosty nights. We mostly eat the leaves in salads, but they are also tasty braised, or cooked in soup. In Pennsylvania Dutch country, you may find dandelions offered briefly at farmers markets in spring. On a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch menu, they are served with a hot sweet and sour bacon dressing. Dandelion greens contain more vitamin A and C than many garden salad greens, and they're ready before anything else, so they fill a fresh-food gap deliciously. The small blossom buds tightly packed in the center of the developing crown are also a good vegetable when briefly cooked for three to five minutes. Of course you'll recognize the dandelion, with its toothed 4- to 8-inch long leaves, its long, strong root, and its familiar golden flower. Dandelions are perennials, so if you have a good patch of them you can return to it. Look for them in sunny lawns, around perennial vegetable plantings, or at the garden's edge. You won't find them in the woods, deep shade, or tangled brush. APRIL ASPARAGUS (Asparagus officinalis) Wild asparagus spears are just like those that grow in your garden -- not surprising when you realize they are seedlings from those same plants, in most cases scattered by bird droppings. The largest asparagus spear I've ever seen was a wild one our daughter found near our Lancaster County home. The stem was a good 2-inches in diameter. It seemed a shame to cook it. We don't forage for wild asparagus these days because we have a cultivated patch, but during our years on a small homestead we were glad for every spear we could find while we waited for our patch to bear. You won't discover large colonies of wild asparagus in any one place. But during an afternoon jaunt on a warm late-April or May day you can often find enough of it for a meal. Look alongside fences where the mower can't reach; in hedgerows, road ditches, and pasture corners; and especially under phone wires or posts where birds perch. Check too, for golden tan, dried, bent stalks from last year -- sure signs of roots that will send up this year's spears. Asparagus thrives in rich, well-limed soil and full sun. Watch out for poison ivy, which likes the same conditions and often grows near by. CATTAILS (Typha latifolia) have a number of edible parts; root sprouts, green bloom spikes, and young leaf shoots, sometimes called Cossack asparagus. We've tried the bloom spikes and found them interesting camping food, if a bit gritty. It is the shoots we enjoy most. We planted cattails in a wet spot near our pond so we could have a ready supply of this delicacy. Starting in April, and continuing into May as new plants develop, we look for cattail leaves extending 2 feet above water level (taller plants have tougher cores). Ten to twelve of these multileafed shoots serve two people. Under the tough green outer leaves is a tender white core, 3/8 to 5/8 inch in diameter and 6 to 10 inches long. Steamed for 15 minutes, or cooked in soup, these shoots bring spring to the table. Sliced thin, crosswise, they make a fine addition to a salad. They have a mild, unremarkable flavor and a pleasant texture. Look for cattails around ponds, marshes, wetlands, even ditches -- wherever there is standing water or soggy ground. MORELS (Morchella esculenta) seem to possess a mystique surpassing that of any other wild plant, a combination of elusiveness and rich subtle flavor. Sauteed in butter, these May-fruiting mushrooms are delicious. The problem is finding enough of them. I know people who have picked half-bushel baskets of morels, but at our place we've only ever found a handful at a time -- enough to savor slowly with a simple meal or a piece of toast. Usually, we've found them when we were looking for something else. People who have -- or know of -- good morel hunting grounds are, understandably, close-mouthed about where and even when they pick. The mushroom isn't handsome but it is distinctive. Rising from the ground on a hollow, pale-tan, rubbery-looking, 1- to 1 1/2-inch-wide stalk, the morel has a hollow cap with a honeycomb design furrowing its surface. The size of the fungus varies from 2 to 9 inches in height. Its color ranges from tan through grayish brown to cinnamon; the caps are often the color of weathered oak leaves. Also called the sponge mushroom, this morel fruits in late April and early May in south-central Pennsylvania. It is found in varied terrain, from old orchards to burnt-over meadows to duff under oaks, beeches, maples or ash. The similar black morel (M. elata) appears earlier in April, often in conifer forests or in mixed woods among aspen, beech, poplar, or pine. It has a more regular arrangement of ribs on its cap, with the rib edges usually darker than the tan flesh in the pits. Don't rely on this brief description for identification. Consult a good mushroom guidebook. Be sure to make a clear distinction between the pitted cap surface of the morel and the merely wrinkled skin of the sometimes- poisonous false morels, which belong to a different family (Helvellaceae). We never hesitate to eat a mushroom that we know well, but we always take time to be certain of our identification. ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** SIDE BAR ********************************************************************** SOME PRACTICAL HINTS FOR GETTING THE GOOD STUFF 1. Mark known foraging sites and ripening times on your calendar as you discover them for easy reference the following year. Some people mark sites on maps, too. 2. This season's observations can lead to next season's good picking. Watch for evidence of choice wild foods -- cracked nut shells on the road, fields of wild mustard in bloom, tall fronds of gone-to-seed asparagus -- so you'll know where to return. 3. Always ask permission to gather plants on land that is privately owned. 4. Pick and use only those foods you know for sure are edible and safe. 5. Avoid picking from the sides of heavily traveled roads and from land that has been sprayed with herbicides or insecticides. 6. Keep collecting materials in your car; a basket, burlap bag, backpack, pail, newspaper, plastic bags. You never know when you'll spot black walnuts by a country road, or berries along a river. 7. Dress for the job. Wear long pants and long-sleeves for dealing with thorny bushes, a sun hat for berry patches, boots for prowling wetlands and gloves for nut husks that can stain your fingers. 8. Cut a long green stick with a forked notch for pulling out-of-reach berry canes toward you. 9. Keep your gathered foods cool and use them as soon as possible. Dry or freeze the surplus. 10. When gathering berries, tie a pail or milk carton around your waist so you can use both hands for picking. 11. On camping trips, bring your identification books along to help you identify unfamiliar species and to double-check those you know. 12. Make mushroom spore prints for positive identification. Put the fungus, gill side down, on a piece of paper and cover it with a dish so it won't be disturbed. Leave it for four to eight hours. If you expect the print to be white, use colored paper, or use half of a colored sheet and half white. 13. When collecting mushrooms, separate the different kinds in case there is a question later about one type's identification or edibility. ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** FINE FORAGING: LATE SPRING by Nancy Bubel Second in a series on finding and preparing the best outdoor edibles of the season. (Country Journal // May/June 1991) VIOLETS (Viola sororia) are a minor but fun addition to a spring salad. The flowers not only look glorious in a bowl of mixed early greens but they also contain a hefty amount of vitamin C. Eaten alone they have a piquant tang. An easy way to enjoy violet blossoms is to nibble on a few as you tramp around the open country. They can also be made into a syrup or jam. I'm tempted to say that violets are everywhere. While that isn't entirely true, they are widely distributed throughout the continental United States. Shady and semishady borders, road edges, stream banks, open woods, and north sides of buildings are a few of the many places they are found. SHAGGY MANES (Coprinus comatus) These easy-to-identify mushrooms appear as often in town as in the country. The shaggy, cylindrical, white caps are about 2-inches wide, and 2 to 6 inches high on 2- to 8-inch stalks. Look for a ring on the stalk below the cap. Shaggy manes are good only when fresh. As they age, the gills dissolve into an inky black liquid. It isn't toxic, but isn't appealing to eat, either. Shaggy manes fruit in May through early June and again in September and October. They often grow in large colonies and have a surprising ability to erupt through hard-packed, even paved ground. We've seen them in our pasture, by wood chip piles, along town roadsides, and in firmly compacted gravel next to a playground. JUNE STRAWBERRIES (Fragaria virginiana & F. vesca) When my family and I first moved to our farm, the hayfield was jeweled in June with thousands of wild strawberry plants, producing more than we could possibly pick. The tiny berries that grew in the lengthening grass had a flavor fruitier and more fragrant than any domesticated strawberry. They varied in size from 1/4 inch gems to thumbnail sized beauties that filled the pail faster. Tasks of all kinds call from every side in June, but strawberry days are fleeting, and we always manage to take time for at least a few afternoons of picking. I remove the stem and leaf cap as I pick to save tedious (and berry-squashing) picking-over later. If you're searching for wild strawberries, check out rocky hillsides on a southern slope, grassy roadsides, meadows with thin grass, old hayfields, and late-mowed barnyard edges; in either sun or lightly dappled shade. Then drop everything and enjoy them. BOLETUS MUSHROOMS are fairly easy to identify. All have a spongy, open-pored surface under their caps, instead of gills. Spore prints vary from yellow-brown to olive-brown. Boletes of various kinds grow under oak aspen, birch and conifers, from June into autumn, depending on the species. Many are edible and choice, especially the fabled Boletus edalis, often called the king bolete, with its smooth brown cap and huge bulbous stem. Boletes with flesh that bruises blue and those with red tube mouths are considered poisonous. Like other mushrooms, boletes pop up at seemingly random places in the woods, so we've learned to carry an empty bag or two when we go hiking. If possible, make positive identification of the mushroom before picking a lot of them. Once when we were camping in Virginia, we picked a whole grocery bag full of an interesting-looking bolete. It didn't bruise blue and it didn't have red tube mouths, but it turned out to be the bitter bolete (Tylopilus felleus), a poorly flavored fungus that not even the best butter could redeem. We did have fun picking them, though. ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** SIDE BAR ********************************************************************** FORAGING FOR PROFIT Randy Roya is a professional forager. After being a chef for both cruise ships and ski resorts (foraging after hours and developing recipes for his pickings). Roya quit to devote all his time to what he loves most -- gathering wild edible plants. He became a full time plant hunter in his native Vermont in 1986. Roya entered the market at a good time. A few Vermont restaurants were already featuring wild edible plants on their menus usually pricey French imports of out-of-state delicacies available frozen or canned never fresh. "Some restaurants were interested but couldn't afford to pay imported prices. Others weren't sure about preparation, so I offered freshly foraged local greens and mushrooms and brought recipes," he says. Local foragers had barely penetrated the market. they were essentially hobbyists, undependable about deliveries and picking only when the spirit moved them. Roya made sure he always showed up when he said he would. During his years as a chef he had made numerous contacts. To them he brought sample baskets of wild mushrooms and leeks. With new restaurants he analyzed their menus to see if they seemed innovative -- and capable of handling the expense of his labor and delivery. Roya located out-of-state markets in such places as Palm Beach and San Francisco by looking through telephone books and calling restaurants (a good job for a rainy May). When visiting a potential client he took his samples and his knowledge -- anyone not interested in a brief wild plant education didn't get the opportunity to buy. Roya learned his first foraging lessons from his father, who is part Canadian Indian. "My dad inspired me to do this," he says. He augments this knowledge by studying books. He particularly likes Peterson's field guide for edible wild plants and an out-of-print wild mushroom guide he got from his father. When in doubt about a plant or mushroom, Roya consults with his father and other foragers. He uses a microscope to check the shapes of mushroom spores. Finally, when he is confident of an identification he eats a tiny portion of the plant. "I've never gotten sick from a wild plant. I know the deadly mushrooms really well," he says. Roya's foraging year begins when all but a few patches of snow have melted in May. Rising with the sun, he pulls on thick boots, a long-sleeved shirt to protect his arms from deep scratches, and leggings, if it's cold. He searches woodlands and fields, asking permission of landowners first. As the baskets he carries fill, he stashes them in cool spots returning to them later to load them into cooler chests in his car. He leaves the patches by 3pm to make restaurant deliveries between 4 and 6pm. Roya enjoys sharing his knowledge. He instructs local foragers and lectures on wild edible plants. That knowledge includes being aware that leeks grow near stands of maple trees. (For every two leeks he pulls he leaves one behind to multiply.) Roya also knows that riverbanks are the place to find bright green ostrich ferns, whose tightly furled fiddle heads are a traditional delicacy at fine restaurants and specialty stores in Canada and throughout the Northeast. Fiddleheads are Roya's cash cow. He estimates he sells three tons of fiddleheads each spring in markets throughout the Northeast. Harvesting them is chilly and sometimes dangerous work, as wet slopes can give way. He picks from the outermost ring because the center will yield a new crop next year. Another fiddlehead season ends. Roya seeks out wet and swamps, areas for cattail shoots -- Cossack asparagus -- until June when they toughen. This is a particularly abundant plant easily foraged. Roya gathers more than 50 varieties of mushrooms and sells most of them fresh, though some are dried or preserved in brine. Favorites include the abundant chanterelle (up to 1,500 pounds in a season), chicken mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, morels and fairy ring which grows in a circle that expands every year. In between mushroom gathering, he forages for high bush cranberries, which are used for sauces. In late summer he picks spiny gooseberries, black raspberries, blueberries and black cherries. As foraging becomes more popular, Roya is seeing some disturbing trends. "I'm concerned that a novice will sell inedible mushrooms and ruin the reputation of wild mushrooms. As he watches newcomers he laments their lack of care. "Patches where I pick are getting better each year because I take care of them. I move brush away to let new plants emerge. I don't pick everything. I cut rather than pull, and I don't damage the mycelium under mushrooms." Roya urges novice foragers to think about what they are doing. "Take care," he cautions, "or the plants will disappear." ********************************************************************** FINE FORAGING: MIDSUMMER by Nancy Bubel (Country Journal / July/August 1991) Third in a series on finding and preparing the best outdoor edibles of the season. JULY LINDEN FLOWERS (Tilia spp.) In late June and early July, I sniff the air for the haunting perfume of blossoming linden trees. I gather and dry the small, cream-colored, waxy-looking flowers to make an aromatic tea, an old European custom that should be more widely practiced. Linden trees are broadly distributed throughout the United States. I've seen European lindens planted as street trees in several cities, as wild roadside trees in West Virginia, as magnificent guardians of houses or barns on old farms and most memorably, as ancient specimen trees at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home. The blossoms of the European linden (T. europaea) possess a more intense fragrance and therefore a better flavor than those of the smaller, nearly pyramidal (T. americana). DAYLILIES (Hemerocallis fulva) These bright flowers can put a vegetable on your table even if you never plant a seed. Their buds, and even the spent blossoms, are edible. Briefly steamed, they're good to eat in their own right, without needing any justification by comparison with familiar vegetables, although they are often compared to snap beans. Daylily buds are ready around the middle of July. For several weeks they will steadily produce trumpet-shaped orange flowers above arching, flat, 2-to-3-foot leaves. Blossoming daylilies and the first garden picking of beans occur at about the same time. If you can't keep up with the daylilies once the beans start producing, you can dry and store both the buds and the day-old flowers, as the Chinese do. Widespread and easy to find when in bloom, daylilies grow on roadsides, near fences, by old house foundations, and around meadows, in both sun and partial shade. (Remember to always ask permission before picking any plants on private property.) They are strong-rooted perennials, so removing the flowers won't interfere with next year's bloom. BLACKBERRIES (Rubus idaeus var. canadensis) RASPBERRIES (R. idaeus var. strigosus) BLACK RASPBERRIES (R. occidentalis) WINEBERRIES (R. phoenicolasius) Bramble bushes ramble all over the land, producing perfectly delicious compound berries that are wonderful for fresh eating and for pies, jams, and cobblers. All are borne on spiny bushes that hopscotch over rocky clearings and fringe the edges of mixed woods, their 6-foot long canes rooting at the tips in a thorny stitchery that can quickly cover favorable sites. Most of these berries ripen in July, with a few extending into August. Blackberries and black raspberries, the most numerous of these wild delights, favor sunny or partly sunny places, as do the less common raspberries. Wineberry bushes, which produce a translucent, orange-red, tart/sweet berry, prefer shady and semishady sites. Wineberry stems are covered with a reddish down, and the berries remain enclosed in a fuzzy calyx until they're ripe. Wineberries have a less intense flavor than raspberries or blackberries, but they're refreshingly juicy. They're good in a fruit cup or drizzled with honey and covered with milk. BLUEBERRIES (Vaccinium corymbosum) After picking lowbush blueberries from scraggly 18-inch high plants during the Maine summers of my childhood, I found the high-bush blueberries here in Pennsylvania offered a whole new world of picking. Their larger berries in full clusters are much easier to gather. They have a wonderful wild, rich flavor that uniform, cultivated blueberries have never been able to match. Blueberries are members of the heath family and, like their cousins the azaleas and rhododendrons, they like acid soil. Lowbush species are found in sunny or semishady rocky or sandy clearings, often near pines and sweet ferns. My favorite patches in Maine were along the railroad right of way and in clearings in the woods where there had been a fire. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, I've found highbush blueberries growing in swampy places, near mountain streams, along the edge of sandy woods and in northern Pennsylvania, in highcountry meadows near mixed woods. I've picked gallons of blueberries in a swamp where the standing water was so deep I needed hip boots to stay dry. Blueberries ripen in New Jersey about mid-July and in the northern Pennsylvania mountains in early August, so the picking season can be long for serious foragers who enjoy wild berries enough to travel for them. It has been awhile since my family and I have managed to make visits to our favorite picking spots, but each year we talk about doing it. More than any other wild food we gather, blueberries combine pleasure in the picking site, delight in the fruit (of course we eat as we pick), fond memories, family fun, adventure, and deep satisfaction in the abundance that is there for the finding and gathering. PUFFBALLS (Lycoperdon perlatum, Calvatia gigantea, and others) If morels are the filet mignon of the mushroom world, puffballs are the hamburger. Some of these stemless fungi have smooth skins; others are warty and leathery. They range from an inch or so in diameter through baseball and soccer ball size and up to gigantic specimens as much as 2 feet across. We've seen many puffballs the size of soccer balls growing in grass along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and we've found two on our lane, growing in a grassy strip at the edge of the woods. Puffballs grow on the remains of dead trees as well as in sod. They're a summer food, usually available from July until September. Use them while their interior flesh is still white and firm; when it softens and yellows, the flavor is poor, and when the fungi turn hollow and dusty inside, they'll explode in a cloud of grayish spores when you step on them. To serve them, peel off the skin, slice them, and fry the solid flesh. Like all mushrooms, puffballs shrink a lot when cooked. AUGUST MULBERRIES (Morus rubra) are often seen as street trees in town, their dropped fruit unappreciated by homeowners who resent the purple sidewalk stains. They appear on country roads, too, and on old farms where an original tree may be surrounded by its seedlings. Mulberries are fun to eat as a wild snack. They are quite sweet. Acid content, and therefore flavor, varies from tree to tree. Most mulberries are a deep purple, but there is a white variety that is so sweet it is sometimes used as a sugar substitute in canning fruit. When a mulberry tree is in fruit, it produces prodigious amounts of elongated berries. The trees accept a variety of conditions and may be found growing almost anywhere in open sunny ground in the North Temperate Zone. Not content for birds to drop us some seedlings, we planted several mulberries in the hedgerows of our farm. ELDERBERRIES (Sambucus canadensis) You can buy cultivated elderberry bushes, which have larger berries than the wild kind, but their berries have less flavor. We planted some once, but we don't bother with them anymore because the wild berries taste so much better. Don't try elderberries raw, though; all elderberries have a rank, disagreeable flavor when uncooked. But when cooked and sweetened in pie or jelly, their flavor is as rich as their deep-purple color. We've used elderberries in three ways: The dried berries make an excellent, full-bodied tea: the cooked berries, thickened a bit with arrowroot and sweetened, make a fine pie: and the juice from stewed berries makes one of the world's best jellies. Elderberries ripen in mid-August here in south-central Pennsylvania, and birds compete with us for the crop. They often eat the berries before they ripen. Snap or cut the heavy heads of small, purple-black berries from the bushes, and then sit on the porch in the evening light to pull the berries off the stems as fireflies blink over the meadow. Processing elderberries is a PURPLE job, but the results are worth the cleanup. Elderberry bushes grow in damp, rich soil near streams, road ditches, lowlands, and hedgerows. They often grow in large groups, so you can pick a lot of berries in one stop. MAY APPLES (Podophyllum peltatum) These elusive fruits have a tropical flavor and aroma that make them worth seeking. They're good to eat fresh, out of your hand. We've never gathered enough of them at one time to make May apple marmalade as Euell Gibbons did, but we hope to someday. May apple plants are easy to find in May. Their umbrellalike leaves on 12-to-16-inch stems shelter a single, waxy, white, 1 to 1 1/2 inch blossom. By August and into September, though, when the pale-yellow fruits ripen, the stems have bent to the ground, exposing the fragrant fruits to foraging squirrels. May apples prefer open woods and roadsides, but we've also found them in meadows. They seem to like fairly moist soil. ====================================================================== ====================================================================== SIDE BAR == RECIPES ====================================================================== Violet Candy 3 cups blue violet flowers 2 egg whites (beaten) 1 cup granulated sugar Rinse the flowers in cold water, drain, and dry on a paper towel. Hold the flower with a pair of tweezers and with a toothpick dab the flower with eggwhite. Sprinkle with sugar. Spread the coated violet flowers on wax paper and let dry. Dandelion Wine 1 gal dandelion flowers 1 gal boiling water 3 lemons 3 oranges 3 lbs brown sugar 2 pkgs yeast Wash flowers in cold water. Place flowers in a 2 gallon or larger crock. Cover with 1 gallon boiling water. Cover container and let stand for 3 days. Filter the mixture and save the liquid. Chop lemons and oranges into small pieces. Add chopped lemons and oranges (seeds, skins, and all) and sugar to dandelion liquid in an enamel pot. Cover and boil for 30 minutes. Cool to lukewarm and pour into crock. Add 2 packages of yeast. Cover container and ferment for 3 weeks or until bubbling stops. Always allow for the carbon dioxide to escape because containers can explode. Filter through cheesecloth and pour into bottles. Seal with corks. Winter Cress Au Gratin 1 lb winter cress flower buds 1/3 cup onion (chopped) 3 Tbsp butter 2 Tbsp flour 1/2 cup cheddar cheese (shredded) salt & pepper to taste 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese 1 tsp paprika Lightly boil winter cress for 5 minutes. Drain and save liquid. Saute onions in butter until brown. Add flour and 1 cup of winter cress liquid. Stir constantly. Stir in Cheddar cheese until melted. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour some of the sauce into a baking dish. Add the winter cress flower buds and cover with remaining sauce. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and paprika. Broil for 5 minutes or until light brown. Daylily Fritters 1 1/2 cups flour 2 tsp baking powder dsh garlic salt salt & pepper to taste 1/4 cup milk 2 eggs 1/2 tsp basil 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese 10 daylily flowers Sift together flour, baking powder, and garlic salt. In another bowl beat milk and eggs together. Combine mixtures with basil and cheese until smooth. Wash flowers. Clip off stems, and pull out stamens and pistil. Pat dry with paper towels. Dip blossoms into batter and deep-fry until golden brown. Place fritters on paper towels and salt and pepper to taste. Red Raspberry Chewy 3 cups red raspberries (cleaned and washed) 2 Tbsp sugar Combine sugar and raspberries and bring to boil. Cool. Puree in blender or food processor. Pour onto a nonstick cookie sheet or onto wax paper on a regular cookie sheet. Place in sun, food dehydrator, or oven at lowest setting (about 150øF). Allow to dry until chewy has a leather consistency. Peel off and store in jars or plastic bags in refrigerator. Blackberry Cobbler 4 cups blackberries 3 Tbsp cornstarch 1 1/2 cups brown sugar dsh salt 1 cup biscuit mix 1/3 cup cream Pour fresh blackberries into casserole dish. Mix together cornstarch, sugar, and salt. Sprinkle mixture over berries. Combine biscuit-mix and cream and spread over berries. Bake at 350øF for 30 minutes or until browned. Serve with cream. Cattail Pancakes 1 cup cattail pollen 1 cup flour 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 2 cups milk 2 tsp cinnamon 2 Tbsp melted butter Sift together cattail pollen, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add liquid ingredients to the dry mixture and mix. Set aside for about 10 minutes. Mix and add more milk until desired consistency is obtained. Cook the same as regular pancakes. ====================================================================== ====================================================================== ---------- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.00 Title: Violet Candy Categories: Appetizers, Candies, Desserts Yield: 3 cups 3 c Blue violet flowers 1 c Granulated sugar 2 Egg whites, beaten Rinse the flowers in cold water, drain, and dry on a paper towel. Hold the flower with a pair of tweezers and with a toothpick dab the flower with egg whites. Sprinkle with sugar. Spread the coated violet flowers on wax paper and dry. ----- ---------- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.00 Title: Dandelion Wine Categories: Alcohol, Beverages Yield: 1 gallon 1 ga Dandelion flowers 3 Oranges 1 ga Boiling water 3 lb Brown sugar 3 Lemons 2 pk Yeast Wash flowers in cold water. Place flowers in a 2 gallon or larger crock. Cover with 1 gallon boiling water. Cover container and let stand for 3 days. Filter the mixture and save the liquid. Chop lemons and oranges into small pieces. Add chopped lemons and oranges (seeds, skins, and all) and sugar to dandelion liquid in an enamel pot. Cover and boil for 30 minutes. Cool to lukewarm and pour into crock. Add 2 packages of yeast. Cover container and ferment for 3 weeks or until bubbling stops. Always allow for the carbon dioxide to escape because containers can explode. Filter through cheesecloth and pour into bottles. Seal with corks. FINE FORAGING: FALL by Nancy Bubel (Country Journal / September/October 1991) Last in a series on finding and preparing the best outdoor edibles of the season. SEPTEMBER GROUND CHERRIES (Physalis pubescens): These marble-sized, tomato-like berries are also called husk tomatoes. Each berry is individually enclosed in a papery husk, similar to that of a Chinese lantern, that turns from green to straw color when ripe. Ground cherries are plants of hedgerows and roadsides and are weeds in gardens and plowed fields. The sprawling plant hugs the ground and bears pointed leaves that resemble those of the pepper plant. Its ripe berries are sweet and may be eaten fresh or made into jam or pie. The ground cherry has a wide range. Once when we found a bunch of them in our garden, I gave them to a Hawaiian friend, who remembered them from her home state as poha berries. MEADOW MUSHROOMS (Agaricus campestris) are tasty mushrooms nearly identical to those sold in stores, but those you gather yourself will be fresher and free of the residue of chemicals used to control growing conditions in commercial mushroom cultures. These beauties have smooth white caps, pink gills when young (turning tan and then brown with age), and a brown spore print. (Here again, use my description only as a rough guide in locating wild fungi; always make a positive identification from a reliable mushroom guidebook and take a spore print before eating any wild fungi.) Several years ago we had an immense crop of meadow mushrooms in our pasture -- more than ever before or since. We picked gallons of them for two to three weeks. Our usual harvest is measured in quarts -- enough to perk up several breakfasts and dinners with sauteed fresh mushrooms. We find them in sunny, grassy places such as in the pasture and orchard and along fences. HAZELNUTS (Corglus americana). These hedgerow plants bear their nuts in secret, sometimes partly shady places known only to the squirrels. The small wild nuts, born in clusters of fringed husks, taste just like the larger cultivated filberts you buy in the store. Hazelnuts ripen in early September. You need to gather them before the squirrels move in or you won't find any of the delicious nuts. Look for multiple shrubby slender branches rising directly from the ground. The leaves are roughly heart shaped, with toothed edges and a downy undersurface. In winter and spring you'll see pendant catkins on the stalks, which are the tightly wrapped buds of next year's flowers. BLACK WALNUTS (Juglans nigra) have become a staple in our household, thanks to hedgerow trees that drop enough of the green-husked nuts on the road or on mowed land where we can easily find them. The nuts have a distinctive, rich flavor that is especially good when they are oven dried for about 10 minutes at 325øF. We think they make the world's best waffles when dropped into a whole-wheat buckwheat, and oatmeal batter and served with maple syrup from the Pennsylvania woods. An easy way to remove the husk is to spread the nuts in a single layer on the driveway where the car or tractor will run over them. If you let them dry for a day or so after the husks have split open, your hands won't get so stained by the walnut's inedible brown juice. After I pick out the husked nuts, I keep them in a basket in the sun to dry for a week or two. Then, before winter, we pour them into a cylinder of hardware cloth that admits air but keeps out squirrels. My husband made this nut cage by stapling a rectangle of hardware cloth, at its lower edge, around an 18-inch diameter disk of wood, then wiring the sides together to form an open-topped nut safe, which can be covered with a circle of hardware cloth for more protection against squirrel raids. To maintain good air circulation so the nuts don't heat when piled up, we insert a 2-inch-diameter tube of hardware cloth in the center of the cage before starting to fill it with nuts. In order to get as many unbroken halves as possible, we use a special nutcracker. You can crack the nuts open with a hammer, too. Black walnut trees are among the last to leaf in the spring and the first to lose their leaves in the fall. They have compound leaves composed of paired, slender, pointed leaflets. The green-husked nuts range from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 inches in diameter. They start to fall in late September and can still be found in good condition in mid-November. The husks turn brown soon after the nuts fall. Tons of these wild treasures go to waste each year. For a treat that money can't buy, try nutting for black walnuts. HICKORY NUTS (Carga ocata) are as delicious as walnuts and somewhat more versatile because their flavor is more subtle. But they aren't as dependable a crop. The shagbark hickory tree in our meadow produces nuts only every third year, with an all-out, large crop once every seven. So for a regular supply of hickory nuts, you need to make the acquaintance of several trees. Look for a tall, stately tree with shaggy bark -- the result of long sections of bark coming loose at the ends but remaining attached to the tree. As the nuts ripen in late September they usually fall free of their four-part segmented husks (the husks are dry and easy to remove). The 1 1/4 inch tan nuts are flattened on two sides. Like a black walnut, a hickory nut is difficult to extract from its shell unless you have a special nutcracker. With the proper equipment, cracking them is a pleasant, satisfying job, and the nuts taste wonderful. We eat them plain, add them to granola and cookies, and make a family favorite hickory pie, substituting hickories for pecans and using maple syrup in place of the usual corn syrup. The gathering period for hickories extends into the month of October. OCTOBER PAPAWS (Asimina triloba) are a Northern exotic. The kidney-shaped, kiwi-sized fruit has a smooth, greenish-yellow skin and a tropical aroma when ripe. Its other names (custard apple, Michigan banana) give you a hint of its texture -- smooth and starchy -- and its flavor -- mellow, like a banana with a tinge of wildness. The fruits drop to the ground when they ripen, in mid to late October. At this time of year, the slender, often spindly papaw tree is easy to spot in the woods because its large wide leaves turn a golden-yellow hue. The trees can grow in shade -- we found some doing well as understory trees in a mixed forest. Scuffle through the leaves under the trees to find the fruits. NOVEMBER OYSTER MUSHROOMS (Pleurotus ostreatus) grow on dead elm, popular, aspen, alder, beech, and maple trees. The ones we've found have been white, creamy, or grayish tan, with an off-center stem and white gills extending down the stalk. The spores are white. They often grow in large clusters in both spring and fall, and even in wet, cool summers. We've found them as late as November. Oyster mushrooms sauteed in butter or oil are delicious (discard the tough stem ends). They are a real find in the autumn woods. PERSIMMONS (Diospyros tirginiana). We associate these sweet morsels with Thanksgiving because we would often gather them while hiking with our children on their Thanksgiving school break. Although we've found good persimmons near the sea in Delaware in early October, those that grow in our woods seem to taste best a month or more later, probably because they receive less sun than the streetside Delaware trees. Experts insist that contrary to popular belief, it is maturity not frost that sweetens the persimmon. Sometimes we shake the trees to dislodge the 1 1/2 inch, slightly flattened, round, burnt-orange fruits. They're squishy and look overripe, but taste sweet. We usually eat them right there in the woods and toss the seeds around to start more trees. Persimmons have an astringency that catches in your throat after you've eaten eight or ten. I've occasionally used persimmon pulp (made by putting the ripe fruits through a food mill) in muffins or steamed breads, and we've enjoyed the persimmon pudding that is a tradition in parts of the Mid-West. The word serendipity could have been coined for the wild foods gatherer. Wonderful foods are often found in unexpected places. You may start out searching for one treat and find another instead. When you've been gathering wild foods for a while, each jaunt recalls other times, other places. You find yourself reminiscing about the time you found those blueberries by the side of the lake; when the kids scrambled to collect hickories on a perfect Indian summer day; when you spotted oyster mushrooms capped with snow on a firewood-collecting trip into the woods. You find yourself increasingly able to tune into subtle clues in the fields, hedgerows, and woods that lead you to good things there for the gathering. And finally, you discover that you enjoy the search too, whether you return with a pailful of ripe raspberries or just some kindling for the fireplace. People have been gatherers for longer than they've been shoppers, and I find that I need to respond to that ancient foraging impulse. Luckily, there are still many good things out there for us to collect and enjoy. ====================================================================== ====================================================================== SIDE BAR ====================================================================== REFERENCE BOOKS Here are some books you may find useful in identifying foraged plants. A FIELD GUIDE TO EASTERN EDIBLE WILD PLANTS by Lee A. Peterson (Houghton Miffin, 1984) (a part of the Peterson Field Guide series) A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO EDIBLE AND USEFUL PLANTS by Debera Tull (Texas Monthly Press, 1987) A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE: A GUIDE TO EDIBLE WILD FLOWERS AND PLANTS OF THE NORTHEAST by Nicholas Fish (Scriptorium Press, 1987) COMMON EDIBLE AND USEFUL PLANTS OF THE EAST AND MIDWEST by Muriel Sweet (Naturegraph, 1975) EAT THE WEEDS by Ben C. Harris (Barre, 1969) EDIBLE and USEFUL WILD PLANTS of the UNITED STATES and CANADA by Charles F. Saunders (Peter Smith) EDIBLE WILD PLANTS OF EASTERN UNITED STATES AND CANADA by John Tomikel (Allegheny, 1976) EDIBLE WILD PLANTS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEIGHBORING STATES by Richard J. and Mary Lee Medve (Penn State Press, 1990) EDIBLE WILD PLANTS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW YORK by John Tomikel (Allegheny, 1973) FAVORITE WILD FOODS OF THE FIFTY STATES (National Wild Foods Association, Parkersburg, West Virginia) FIELD GUIDE TO NORTH AMERICAN EDIBLE WILD PLANTS by Thomas and Dykeman Elias (Van Nostrand Berhold, 1983) SIMON AND SCHUSTER'S GUIDE TO MUSHROOMS (Simon and Schuster, 1981) STALKING THE WILD ASPARAGUS by Euell Gibbons (Alan C. Hood, 1987) STURTEVANT'S EDIBLE PLANTS OF THE WORLD (Dover, 1972) THE AUDUBON SOCIETY FIELD GUIDE TO NORTH AMERICAN MUSHROOMS by Gary H. Lincoff (Alfred A. Knopf, 1981) THE MUSHROOM HUNTER'S FIELD GUIDE by Alexander H. Smith and Nancy Weber (University of Michigan Press, 1969) TOM BROWN'S GUIDE TO WILD EDIBLE AND MEDICINAL PLANTS by Tom Brown Jr. (Berkley Publishing, 1985) WILD EDIBLE FRUITS AND BERRIES by Marjorie Furlong and Virginia Pill (Naturegraph, 1974) WILD FOOD by Roger Phillips (Little, Brown, 1986) WILD FOODS FIELD GUIDE AND COOKBOOK by Billy J. Tatum (Workman Publishing, 1985)