Food foraging is a great way to introduce novel flavors into the kitchen and get up close and personal with Mother Earth – no wonder it’s such a trend right now.
Here are 10 tips to help you on your way to harvesting nature’s bounty:
- While a wild green or fungus might look ripe for picking, it may have legal protection. Be sure to read up on local laws, or else you could incur a hefty fine.
- Avoid foraging on industrial sites – along with the great nutrients, herbs will also soak up nasty stuff like heavy metals too.
- Be respectful to the eco-system. Don’t harvest all that you see, as you might just be depriving a resident critter of its next meal.
- Think twice about foraging in heavily farmed locales where pesticides and herbicides are used in abundance.
- Use a wicker basket – as opposed to a fully enclosed container – to transport your haul. That way you’ll be giving back to the ecosystem by allowing fungus spores and/or pollen to fall to the ground.
- Read up! There are countless sad stories of foragers who have poisoned themselves through mistakenly identified fungi and plants.
- Though you might not think it at first, cities can be a great place to forage. Look out for wild food tour guides like ‘Wildman’ Steve Brill in New York and John Rensten in London.
- Forage away from areas populated with farm animals to avoid picking up parasites.
- Festivals celebrating local, native foods are a great way to get into food foraging. Events like Morel Fest (Boyne City, Mich.), Ocean Shores Razor Clam Festival (Ocean Shores, Wash.) and the Texas Pecan Festival (Groves, Texas) could help you meet likeminded harvesters.
- The best foods to forage include:
- Mushrooms
- Wild garlic
- Elder
- Seaweed
- Dandelion
- Nettles
- Berries
- Hawthorn
- Horseradish
- Sloes
- Nuts
- Mallow
- Quinces
- Chives
Written by insider city guide series Hg2 | A Hedonist’s guide to…
(Main image: chantel beam photography)
