Food Under Foot

AMC Outdoors, March 2007

Forage for edible plants

The guests chitchat between sips of wine. They nibble on stuffed clams and crabmeat rolls. It’s a typical dinner party scene except for one detail. The food was foraged.

The wine contains autumn olive; the clams, purslane, chickweed, and wood sorrel leaves; the rolls, pokeweed shoots. Hostess Ellen Vliet Cohen didn’t buy these special ingredients at the local Whole Foods. Her husband harvested them in the Northeast woods.

Russ Cohen can spot a wild edible—as the parlance goes among plant pros—from a mile away, and with his beginner tips, so can you. You might find it feeds more than your belly. “You’re connecting to the outdoors through your taste buds,” Cohen says. “It’s basically a communion. Instead of wine and wafers, it’s nuts and berries.”

THE POWER OF OBSERVATION  If you want to forage for food, start by opening your eyes. You needn’t have expert training. “Remember,” he says, “for the vast majority of humanity’s history, we were hunters and gatherers. People weren’t walking around with doctorates in botany.” As it happens, Cohen, author of Wild Plants I Have Known... and Eaten (The Essex County Greenbelt Association), has a master’s degree in natural resources. But novices can get going with a guidebook and basic observational skills.

SCRATCH AND SNIFF  The simplest way to score your first wild edibles is to follow your nose. Regional best bets include sassafras, black birch, and spicebush, according to Cohen. Once recognized (illustrations help), scratch and sniff the plant’s outer bark. Sassafras will smell fruity, and the root can be used to make candy and tea. Black birch’s wintergreen scent hints at one of its culinary charms: chew on the twig as a natural toothbrush. Spicebush has a savory, peppery aroma; dry then grind its berries as a seasoning.

MIND YOUR MANNERS  This activity does carry risks. Namely, picking and eating a toxic substance. “Poisonous plants taste horrible,” Cohen warns. “Don’t eat stuff that tastes bad.” Mushrooms, however, are less forgiving. You can’t tell anything from their flavor, he says. Stick to the easy-to-spot species and don’t forage haphazardly. In a similar vein, consider the environmental impact of your activities. Cohen offers this rule of thumb: Make sure there’s a lot of a plant before picking it and a lot left over when you’re done. “It’s good karma.”

- Megan Lisagor