The Joy of Foraging: Gary Lincoff's Illustrated Guide to Finding, Harvesting, and Enjoying a World of Wild Food PDF
Preview The Joy of Foraging: Gary Lincoff's Illustrated Guide to Finding, Harvesting, and Enjoying a World of Wild Food
Wild leek (ramps) flowers and bulbs Gary Lincoff’s Illustrated Guide to Finding, Harvesting, and Enjoying a World of Wild Food GARY LINCOFF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION HOW AND WHY THIS BOOK IS UNIQUE CHAPTER 1 EDIBLE WILD PLANTS: THE WHAT AND THE WHO I Will Not Eat . . . Wild Tastes, Wilder Flavors Equipment and Tools for Working with Wild Edibles Overharvesting and Sustainability What Edible Wild Plants Are Not in This Book (and Why) The Right Way and the Wrong Ways to Eat Edible Wild Plants CHAPTER 2 EDIBLE WILD PLANTS: THE WHERE AND THE WHEN Section 1: Before You Ever Pick an Edible Wild Plant Inside the Home Medicines and Ointments Let Your Fingers Do the Stalking: Foraging for Edible Wild Plants on the Internet In the Marketplace World Bounty and Regional Markets In Restaurants Section 2: Your First Foraging Outdoors: The Edible Wild Plants Growing at Your Feet Seven Foraging Walks Walk 1: Lawns, Backyards, and Neighborhood Sidewalks Walk 2: Parks: Open Spaces Walk 3: Parks: Ornamental Trees and Shrubs Walk 4: Wooded Areas Walk 5: Wetland Areas Walk 6: Seashores Walk 7: Foraging Abroad: Is Foraging While Traveling a Good Idea? CHAPTER 3 PLANTS FRONT AND CENTER: WILD PLANT IDENTIFICATION How Plants Survive Plant Taxonomy and Classification Different Taxonomies and the Naming of Plants Common Names and Scientific Names How to Identify the Edible Wild Plants in This Book What Kind of Green Is That? Identifying Fruits and Berries The Plants CHAPTER 4 RECIPES FOR THE JOY OF FORAGING Snacks and Nibbles Salads Pickles Soups Potherbs (Cooked Greens) Breads Butters Sauces Entrées Jellies and Jams Pies and Tarts Puddings, Compotes, and Gelatins Frozen Desserts Beverages Seasonal Menus Glossary Resources Acknowledgments About the Author Index NUTS Acorns Black Walnuts Hickory Nuts Hazelnuts Chestnuts Beechnuts EDIBLE WILD FRUITS Roses Wild Strawberries Blackberries and Raspberries Cherries and Plums Serviceberries, Juneberries, Saskatoon Berries Wild Apples, Crabapples, and Haws Mulberries Blueberries Cranberries Ground Cherries Wild Grapes Elderberries Sumac, Rhus-Juice Edible Dogwoods Pawpaws, Custard Apples Mayapples Persimmons Currants and Gooseberries Prickly Pear Ginkgo Spicebush Wintergreen EDIBLE WILD GREENS Fiddlehead Fern Cattails Alliums (Wild Garlic and Wild Leeks) Skunk Cabbage Sweet Flag Daylily Watercress Garlic Mustard Wintercress Peppergrass Shepherd’s Purse Sea Rocket Wild Horseradish Dandelion Chicory Burdock Pineapple Weed Jerusalem Artichoke Sow Thistle Spearmint Catnip Wild Bergamot Mountain Mint Dead Nettles Stinging Nettle Amaranth Lamb’s Quarters Glasswort Japanese Knotweed Curly Dock Sheep Sorrel Wood Sorrel Purslane Milkweed Pokeweed Chickweed Violets Clovers Hopniss Beach Pea Bayberry Linden Sassafras Seaweeds Mallow Orache Arrowhead THE POISON IVY GROUP Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, Poison Sumac INTRODUCTION HOW AND WHY THIS BOOK IS UNIQUE One early July afternoon my wife and I were hiking along a narrow trail in a sun-drenched area of ponds and low thickets about two hours north of New York City. We were becoming dehydrated when we discovered the trail led through a dense patch of blueberries. We descended on them, more to relieve our thirst than anything, but soon we were sitting in among them eating and picking at the same time, and we were filling the containers we had brought along, just in case we found something edible to collect. A Boy Scout troop came by and we cleared the path of our daypacks for them to pass. The scout leader was visibly annoyed. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked. We told him, simply, that we were picking blueberries. He told the scouts to pay no attention to us and to move along. He then turned to us and told us that if he wanted blueberries he’d buy them in the supermarket, and that we should know better than to behave like this in front of the children. I was a scout when I was a boy. I still have the Handbook for Boys manual published by the Boy Scouts of America. It was printed in 1955, and it says that more than 14 million copies of it and earlier editions had been printed since 1910. This manual illustrates some 30 edible wild plants, and mentions more than 60 different kinds. It gives instructions on how to cook these edible wild plants, and even how to do it on camping trips. During the Great Depression a cookbook was published in the U.S. that became a classic for decades. The Joy of Cooking was something many young brides were given so that alone in their new kitchens they could cook up a storm, creating an endless variety of tasty dishes. Included in the book were recipes for cream of nettle soup; instructions for using dandelion, sheep sorrel, and wintercress; and ways to use more than a dozen wild and exotic fruits, including elderberry, pawpaw, persimmon, and prickly pear. It’s unlikely that many urban dwellers noticed these recipes or had market access to these plants. That they could forage their own wild plants was not a skill they likely acquired at home or in school. What the world’s rural peoples have long known about their local, edible wild plants is very slowly making its way into urban centers. Wild foods, such as fiddlehead ferns, ramps (wild leeks), and glasswort (called sea beans in some markets) are showing up in farmers’ markets now, and on the shelves of upscale groceries. Fresh mangosteens, rambutans, even durians, can be seen in Asian groceries everywhere large Asian communities now live. The Joy of Foraging, unlike other guides on foraging for edible wild plants, begins its lessons in your kitchen, where a number of edible wild plants may be hidden in plain sight. We then travel to local markets, farmers’ markets, and ethnic markets to see what’s available for sale where the risk in misidentifying a plant is reduced, or at least where the vendor is trusted to sell what the product is labeled to be. Onward then to restaurants, especially those that offer foods or dishes that you’re not likely to consider replicating at home. Some cities have a wealth of foreign cuisines to choose from, and you may find unusual plant foods in restaurants while traveling domestically and abroad. Four wild fruits in Bali: Salak (Salacca edulis, a palm fruit); top right: Rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum)— common now in Asian markets worldwide; bottom left: Tamarillo or Tree Tomato (Solanum betaceum); bottom right: Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana)—odds-on favorite for being the most-loved fruit of many people in the world (even though few Americans have ever heard of it. Mangosteen is now being sold fresh in season— summer—in Chinese markets.) Only then do we take you outdoors—first to your lawn, backyard, and local streets, mostly to observe and learn rather than collect. Then we take a walk through an open park, followed by a wooded parkland area, then a wetland area, then along a seashore. This way, step by step, locale by locale, plant by plant, you learn to connect what you already know to what you’re observing. Wild plants become known in context, and become “tamed” by becoming known, named, understood, and then used (or eaten). In this way, the “wildness” of edible wild plants is demystified, as the plants become an extended part of what you already know about the plant
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