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Author Topic: Wild Foods
Jenny Gardener
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There's just something about wild foods - stuff you catch or hunt or discover in Nature. It's so incredibly tasty and pleasurable. What are some of your favorite wild foods?

Some of mine, all of which I or my family have gathered from the wild:

fresh-caught fish
spiny lobsters
seaweed
asparagus
chives
puffball mushrooms
morels
venison
pheasant
raspberries
sassafrass root beer

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Scott R
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I didn't know asparagus grew in the wild. . . and I didn't know that you could eat puffball mushrooms. Aren't those little things also call 'devil's snuffboxes?'
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Farmgirl
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poke greens are my favorite wild food. (of course, picked very young, and cooked much like spinach -- you can't eat it when it gets older and begins to have the purple tinge).

I also like cattail tubers -- they taste kind of like cucumber.

(yes, I used to be a huge fan of Euell Gibbons).

Farmgirl

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Jenny Gardener
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The asparagus may have escaped from somebody's garden, but now it grows wild in a ditch. The puffballs are edible before their spores are ripe. I don't know all their common names.
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Portabello
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Wild onions.

But be careful -- there's another plant that looks similar, but which is poisonous.

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Elizabeth
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Farmgirl, I have a book called "Native harvests," which has recipes for all sorts of things like poke and cattail.

I love this certain kind of leafy plany. Not purslane, though that is edible, but this grows in with grass and has a clovery look to it, but bigger.

Oh, and clover. I love clover.

And honeysuckle.

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ludosti
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Wild strawberries in Montana (the thistles were really tasty too)

I don't know if it really counts as wild, but the bamboo I bought a couple weeks ago I've been told is really tasty. [Smile]

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Elizabeth
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I believe asparagus is native to North Amerca. I will check my book.
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UofUlawguy
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My grandfather used to take us out into the rural areas west of town and drive up and down the roads very slowly, stopping every once in a while to pick asparagus that was growing wild by the roadside ditches.
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romanylass
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Black and blueberries.

Clover tea

Dandelion greens, in small amounts.

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Glenn Arnold
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Wild strawberries and blueberries are so much better than the cultivated varieties.

Black raspberries

Crawdads.

I can take or leave fiddleheads.

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Dragon
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I love picking stuff and eating it!
[Smile]

My favorites:

berries
chives
wintergreen (made tea out of the berries one time... SO good!)
peaches (they used to be cultivated, but they hadn't been touched for years)

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Desdemona
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sorrell. mmmmmmmm.
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Eaquae Legit
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I adore fresh peppermint.

I've made sumacberry tea, and it was a bit tart. I've also chowed down on wild fiddleheads, pears, and grapes. Raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries also come to mind.

I love wild food.

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Annie
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quote:
But be careful -- there's another plant that looks similar, but which is poisonous.
Death Camas. But it's pretty easy to tell them apart by smell.

An indian friend of mine showed us how to prepare green cattail heads (like the brown part before it's brown) by cutting them off of the stem and cooking them in butter and salt. It's very tasty and he said that it was a traditional cure for cancers!

I also must speak up for the wild hucklberry. The wild huckleberry is proof that God loves us and wants us to tromp around in the mountains.

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unicornwhisperer
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wild blackberries..... yum
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Christy
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My old coworker and I used to get laughed at at work because we love the smell of red clover silage. It has this brown sugary acidic smell that I think is quite pleasant, but I guess not everyone finds it so. Almost like baking brownies. [Smile]

I always wanted to make Echinacea or chammomile tea, but I like the flowers/plants so much that I've never had the heart to destroy them. There is NOTHING like wild berries, though. Yum!

Not so big on the mushrooms and other beasties. Definitely more of a gatherer than a hunter.

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