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Edible plants

J

JRogers

talks too much
Mar 19, 2002
3,785
1
Claremont, CA
Anyone have any experience using naturally occuring edible plants in their diet?

My experiece has been limited (some fiddleheads, Indian cucumber and mushrooms while camping), but I am thinking of trying some new stuff. I bought a few books and might try to incorporate some of the easy to find plants- oak trees (acorns), nettles, cat tails, dandelions...

Anyone ever go out foraging for things other than berries?
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
In the Northeast you can find:

Mustard Garlic (plant and seeds), Field Garlic (whole plant), White Pine (green needles for tea - fights scurvy), wineberries, low and high bush blueberries, wild strawberries, Queen Anne's Lace (wild carrot), Yellow mustard, violets, wood sorrel, sheep sorrel, wild asparagus, chickweed, speedwell, false solomon's seal, solomon's seal, black birch, honey suckle, brambles (and other varieties of black and raspberries), mulberries, gil over the ground, burdock, wild grapes, mayapple, pawpaw, narrow/wide leaf plantain, rosehips, sugar maple, spicebush, sumac, sassafras, various clovers, milkweed, jewelweed, common mint, peppermint, mullein(also works great as natural TP), and other stuff I can't recall off the top of my head. In case you are wondering I studied this stuff for 14 years (over a decade ago though)...

Mushrooms are bad news - stay away. Even experts get ill or have died.
 
J

JRogers

talks too much
Mar 19, 2002
3,785
1
Claremont, CA
SkaredShtles said:
Frikkin' hippies... :D

I'd like to be able to identify fungi - last summer up in the mountains was absolutely stellar for fungus.
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Yeah, actually the only place I've eaten mushrooms I found on the trail was in Crested Butte last summer. We found CRAZY amounts of mushrooms in the mountains while riding. Several pounds of chantrelles and porcinis were had without much trouble. I wouldn't have even tried them, but we had a local guy with us who knew alot about them.
 
SkaredShtles

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
67,289
13,865
In a van.... down by the river
JRogers said:
Yeah, actually the only place I've eaten mushrooms I found on the trail was in Crested Butte last summer. We found CRAZY amounts of mushrooms in the mountains while riding. Several pounds of chantrelles and porcinis were had without much trouble. I wouldn't have even tried them, but we had a local guy with us who knew alot about them.
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Yeah. We did a 40-ish miler up by Breck last summer and saw unbelievable amounts of 'shrooms. We probably could have picked 50 lbs of portabellos if we'd been able to identify them.
 
valve bouncer

valve bouncer

Master Dildoist
Feb 11, 2002
7,843
114
Japan
Is bacon a plant?
We used have a show in Australia called "Bush Tucker Man" which as the title suggests was all about finding naturally occuring food. He was a major in the Australian Army and went around eating the crookest stuff you can imagine. The worst was mangrove worms.
 
I

ito

Mr. Schwinn Effing Armstrong
Oct 3, 2003
1,709
0
Avoiding the nine to five
JRogers said:
Haha...I think I was guilty of that crime when I lived in Vermont...lots of apple orchards around...
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If I lived in Vermont I would have foraged me some Ben & Jerry's.

Never been much for foraging, but there are a few Sierra hikes I've done where the meals consisted laregely of fresh caught trout. That wasn't half bad, though I have a feeling they taste better than some of the weeds I've seen eaten.

Termites, straight out of the log, are probably the strangest thing I've foraged (backpacking class for school).

The Ito
 
Bushwhacker

Bushwhacker

Turbo Monkey
Dec 4, 2003
1,220
0
Tar Effing River!! NC
My Dad makes a lot of home made wine. His very first recipe was for dandelion...he raided every yard in the neighborhood trying to come up with enough of the damn things to make a batch. It was kind of comical to think of my 60 year old father, sitting in a yard, picking dandelions. The hard part was the 2 to 4 year wait for the stuff to mature. It ended up being extremely tasty though.
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
ito said:
Termites, straight out of the log, are probably the strangest thing I've foraged (backpacking class for school).
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I forget the species, but I've eaten live ants that taste like lemon drops. There isn't too much to them though since they are so small :D
 
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