Thoughts on Foraging

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Snacking on Chamomile

Ever had fresh chamomile? While wandering across Scottish cow-pastures with my adventurous young pals, we often snacked on chamomile flowers, though we didn't know what they were called.

chamomile%20plant.jpg

We preferred the bright yellow ones that still had a few leaves left. We just snipped the seed-pod off between finger and thumb, and munched away. Turns out they are fond of cow-pastures, so our main problem was trying to determine if they had peed on recently. (Quality control: always a problem :)

They are sweet, chewy, and taste like no dried chamomile ever could. It would never have crossed our minds to take them home for a salad, because we were Scottish. The definition of a Scottish Salad is: "The green stuff that you leave on the plate."

But chamomile's fondness for cow-pastures is nothing compared to horse-mushroom's fondness for their namesake. I can't find a photo, but in Britain, horse-pastures sometimes bloom to the point where you can't see the grass. Everybody in the village would take home pounds and pounds, and then come back in a few days and do it again.
 
Lunching on young wheat

My young pals and I discovered things to eat that few people knew about, like young wheat stems.

young-wheat-growing-fields-15098000.jpg

Farmers know that young wheat grains are tasty, but we also discovered how to eat the growing stalk. The light-green ones above are perhaps just a little old to eat the grains, but if you grab the head and pull gently, the growing stem that slides out of the stalk is wonderful ... for about the first two inches, no more.

Rose hips are something else altogether, and quite dangerous if not eaten properly. But I'm kinda hogging the thread here, so I'll wait on that one.

Queen Anne's Lace? Fresh flowers like the ones below are quite tasty.

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When my sister and I were young, our parents would take us into the 'country' for a Sunday drive. Without warning, dad would pull over, mom would produce two paper shopping bags from out of thin air and my sister and I were directed to go pick grape leaves from the vines growing on a fence by the side of the road.

She'd blanch them and can them in salt water. The leaves were used to make sarma, the Armenian equivalent of the Greek dolmades.

We also made yelanchi, a cold appetizer. Among my extended family, this is the hands down favorite appetizer when we get together. I've made it a couple of times but he process of rolling the grape leaves with the filling is not a task I look forward to.

The linked recipe gives you an idea of what they're like but my mom's recipe is different.
 
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When my sister and I were young, our parents would take us into the 'country' for a Sunday drive. Without warning, dad would pull over, mom would produce two paper shopping bags from out of thin air and my sister and I were directed to go pick grape leaves from the vines growing on a fence by the side of the road.

She'd blanch them and can them in salt water. The leaves were used to make sarma, the Armenian equivalent of the Greek dolmades.

We also made yelanchi, a cold appetizer. Among my extended family, this is the hands down favorite appetizer when we get together. I've made it a couple of times but he process of rolling the grape leaves with the filling is not a task I look forward to.

The linked recipe gives you an idea of what they're like but my mom's recipe is different.

You could go with this lazy version, sort of a grape leaf lasagna!

Stuffed Grape Leaves Casserole Recipe | Vegetarian Times
 
Grape-Leaf Pasta, anyone?

You could go with this lazy version, sort of a grape leaf lasagna!

What a brilliant, easy recipe! And it immediately got me to thinking: why not make actual lasagna, from grape-leaf pasta? The recipe would be identical to making spinach pasta, but would be more full-flavoured. I just now googled it, and it looks like it has never been thought of before. To make it, gather only bright young leaves of any size, because they contain less fibre. Then treat yourself to a copy of Aliza Green's "Making Artisan Pasta" and never look back.

51Ipf4prpCL._SX392_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

The top photos show saffron, beetroot and asparagus pasta. the bottom shows squash tortellini (stuffed with squash, which wouldn't be my choice), chestnut corzetti, and spinach manicotti. (Do you get the idea that I swallowed her book whole? Almost literally true, though I haven't yet made corzetti :)

Like her, I prefer to not puree the leaves, so that the formed pasta has multicoloured streaks in it, like this:

spinach-pasta-dough-Making-Artisan-Pasta-Quarry-aliza-green-1-300x160.jpg

Now, what would one put IN grape-leaf lasagna? Ideas?
 
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Hi All,

I am new to this forum (glad to be here!) and this is my first post. I probably should have started in the Newcomers area but this is a topic dear to my heart! Just wanted to say to OP ErehwelseFox in regards to getting your wife interested in foraging: We took a class last year on how to find morels and other wild mushrooms. I've picked berries and wild asparagus all my life, but I can't tell you how exciting it was to look down and see a morel popping out of the ground after following the instructions we learned in that class!

Our guy was in MN, but perhaps you could find someone in your area who specializes in what you're interested in foraging. A class might make that "crap in the woods" seem more official to her.
 
Ever had fresh chamomile? While wandering across Scottish cow-pastures with my adventurous young pals, we often snacked on chamomile flowers, though we didn't know what they were called.

chamomile%20plant.jpg

We preferred the bright yellow ones that still had a few leaves left. We just snipped the seed-pod off between finger and thumb, and munched away. Turns out they are fond of cow-pastures, so our main problem was trying to determine if they had peed on recently. (Quality control: always a problem :)

They are sweet, chewy, and taste like no dried chamomile ever could. It would never have crossed our minds to take them home for a salad, because we were Scottish. The definition of a Scottish Salad is: "The green stuff that you leave on the plate."

But chamomile's fondness for cow-pastures is nothing compared to horse-mushroom's fondness for their namesake. I can't find a photo, but in Britain, horse-pastures sometimes bloom to the point where you can't see the grass. Everybody in the village would take home pounds and pounds, and then come back in a few days and do it again.

Suddenly I want to try fresh Chamomile
 
A class might make that "crap in the woods" seem more official to her.
Glad to have you on board KH. And we are just about to get to great mushroom foraging season. I'm going to go out with my basket this weekend, and find hopefully some greens, wild onions, ramps, and some flowers.

Beloved Wife has gotten better about trusting our 'crap in the woods', as she likes the flavors when I make up something nice, and I haven't poisoned her yet....

Anyone else getting ready for Mushroom season?

Cheers,

TBS
 
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I love purslane, I hate to see it being weeded from gardens.

- Wild garlic - you will find them when you are engulfed by the smell of onion, very prolific, you can pick them in the spring, pick the ramps and then pick the heads mid-summer when they go to seed (like tiny onion/garlic pebbles), then pick them in the fall and it's like a small bulb of garlic
- Fiddleheads - spring
- Berries - serviceberries, blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries - different types grow all the way through to mid-summer
- Mushrooms - this one is trickier but there are a few easy types with no poisonous lookalikes (like anything, you don't eat it unless 150% certain it's been properly identified)
- Apples - Unbelievably many areas have apples all over the place... look to places where there once was a farm, or where people lived in the past - these are feral apples that were planted and forgotten long ago
- Other greens - so many greens, dandelion, nettle
- Nuts - sweet acorns, hickory, walnuts (stay away from black walnuts, not worth it)
- Flowers - so many things make great teas, you can also forage for your beverages
- Cattails
- Ground cherries (they look like tiny tomatillos but they are orange when ripe)
- Asparagus - looks like regular asparagus but thinner
- Ramps - rare and hard to find, but if you do be responsible and only pick a small percentage, they are being overpicked and this is why they are becoming harder to find

Those are some easy ones. It's honestly so rewarding and fun, not to mention money-saving, to forage for at least some of your foods.
 
I love foraging around here, berries, apples, muscadines, mushrooms, pears, cherries, purslane, poke weed (not recommended unless you are 1000% sure you know how to make Poke Sallit - it is very toxic raw.)

I can also find kudzu taters, wild rose hips, wild persimmons (very sour but good for jam or syrup.) Pecans, fiddle heads, cat tails, a few ramps, acorns, hickory nuts galore - all over my yard in the fall. Of course dandelion and nettle.

Add those to my hunting and fishing and, even if I didn't have a garden or grocery store, I'd eat well.

There is a whole bounty of foods out there that so few care to go get today.
 
We don't forage a lot but we've been hiking all spring, at least 5 days a week. We've been foraging watercress weekly now, and yesterday we ran into some oyster mushrooms, and picked those today. What a treat!
 
We found asparagus today and grabbed them. The mushrooms are still growing, more next week.
 
taxlady, better than the loss leaders at the grocery store. I can imagine what it was like when this area was just populating, in the 1880's or 1900's, fresh spring water, free watercress salad, mushrooms, and asparagus. There are nettles, m. stellatum and racemosa for medicine, deer, woodchucks, squirrel, rabbits and frogs. They had cranberry bogs, a marl plant, built a hotel, a fish hatchery, bustling with people living off the land. The history of this area is amazing and the more often we go the more we learn.
 
The grape leaves are about ready to pick, young and tender. Time for some grape leaves stuffed.
 
Thank you for the heads up. :flowers:
You're welcome and thanks for the flowers too!



I've canned grape leaves, about 40, sometimes 72 per jar, washed stacked leaves, stems removed, kind of folded stacks into the jar, then canned like pickles, in a vinegar/salt/water brine, then water bath canned them. They keep well and they are less expensive than the store bought. If I can muster the energy I'd like to can 8 jars for us for the next year or so. Umm 320 to 500+ leaves ought to do it.



I have pressure cooking dried beans on my agenda, and there are a few more things to plant in the gardens.



Dh and I hike everyday for a while- an hour or so. I might be able to enlist him into helping me pick nice grape leaves. I hope. I might be able to squeeze that in.


ANOTHER thing, right now, the oregano is fresh and tender, if you have a patch or know of one, you know they spread easily. So tonight we cut about 3 square feet of it out, a grocery bag full and since it was freshly hosed down with a sprayer, I put it directly in the dehydrator, so I don't have to buy the stuff. I like lemon/oregano on meat, and oregano in curry.



I'll worry about crushing the oregano once it is dry and getting it into jars for this year.
 
Canning them seems like a good idea if they are for dolmas. I want some for pickling. I have read that they help cucumbers stay crispy when you pickle them. I figure I will freeze them. I don't have the energy to make dolmas, so I will just need a few for the cucumber pickles. I think you need one or two per jar.
 
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