I’ve been reading a lot of wild edible foraging and recipe books lately, and I figured I’d share them with you.

Most recently I have been reading The Wild Table: Seasonal Foraged Food and Recipes by Connie Green and Sarah Scott. Although some of the recipes in this book aren’t a gluten-free vegan’s cup of tea (Stir fried dandelion greens with duck fat and garlic), the descriptions of the wild edibles and the stories she tells about them are fabulous.

In fact, just her introduction alone is worth the read: how Ms. Green got into foraging foods for restaurants. Ms. Green explains that in the 1980s it was hard to sell anything foraged to any restaurants: the only two chefs who acknowledged her chanterelles were French - one denied they could even be chanterelles because he felt they didn’t grow in this country, the other preferred his tinned chanterelles from France, feeling they were superior to fresh American chanterelles.

I love Ms. Green’s and Ms. Scott’s out of the box thinking when it comes to using the wild edibles such infusing vodka with evergreen needles and the incredible sounding: “Connie’s Favorite Persimmon Pudding with Brandy Hard Sauce.”

Many of the recipes are certainly from and for gourmet kitchens…and I have a few friends who I know would love to get their hands on these recipes and work their culinary magic!

For me - who loves simple plant-based cooking and wild edibles foraging - there is plenty for me in this book. I can’t wait to try the basket-grilled morels over a fire this spring - a simple recipe of butter, garlic, salt and pepper which Ms. Green describes as “simply the best way to cook morels” and the Fresh Mulberry Ice Cream, though I will adapt the recipe replacing the sugar with a natural sweetener like agave or maple syrup, and the half and half with home-made cashew milk, though I have no doubt her original recipe is divine.

The pictures in the book, both of the wild edibles and the recipes, are gorgeous. Full page spreads of morels roasting over a fire, freshly picked lobster mushrooms, huckleberries flowing out of the bag and onto a plate.

I can’t get enough of this book: reading about her experiences and what she has to say about the plants, drinking in the color pictures, ruminating over the recipes.

This is definitely a great one to have on the bookshelf!

Happy Foraging!

~ Melissa

Randomly drawn winner from about 100 entries

Thank you so much to all the participants of the reishi giveaway!! We had over 100 people enter! It was so interesting hearing from you all! We had people enter from Australia, Canada, Cyprus…and all across the US from here in PA to Texas, New England, California, Michigan and tons of places in between.

Your wild edibles ideas were so fabulous that I have to share some…and I will do so in upcoming blog posts (keeping your names anonymous for privacy…I’ll use initials or just first names and where you are from.)

We’ll have another giveaway in February and other big news to share coming soon as well.

Thanks again and congratulations to Laura of Fort Erie, Ontario Canada who won the mushrooms (she has been contacted and they are being mailed out right now.)

Happy Foraging!

Melissa from Food Under Foot

Happy New Year!

We have so many great things planned for 2012 - and they involve YOU- our Food Under Foot family. (If you are not already signed up for our newsletter, please take a second to do that right now: in the green box to the right.) 2012 is going to be the year that Food Under Foot gets happy feet! More on that later, but for now….

Our very first Food Under Foot give-away! That’s right, we want to send one lucky person 4 oz (1/4 pound!) of some of the gorgeous dried reishi mushroom (Ganoderma tsugae) we harvested this past year from the old growth hemlock forests of Northern Pennsylvania.

Basket of Ganoderma tsugae (reishi mushroom)

To enter:

1. Visit and like our facebook page* (if you don’t have a facebook account you can still enter by email…see information after the star (*) at the end of this post)
2. Find the entry that says: REISHI GIVE-AWAY
3. Under that entry leave a comment telling us where you are from, your favorite thing to forage (all the better if it’s a local treat) and what you love to do with it/how you love to eat/use it.
4. Share so your friends and family can have a chance to win (one entry per person please.)

That’s it! And please share the info with your friends and family so they can join in the fun (who knows, maybe if they win they will share, as I’m sure you’d do the same )

4 oz dried Reishi (Ganoderma tsugae)

Reishi is a medicinal mushroom which you boil in water and drink the tea.  Known in China as Ling Zhi - the mushroom of immortality, the tea is known for its health giving properties. It’s been used for thousands of years in Asia. It boosts the immune system and is anti-cancer and is known for supporting overall wellness and vitality.

You have until Sunday January 8, 2012 to enter, then on Monday January 9, we will assign everyone who entered a number, and randomly pick a number from a hat and whoever matches that number wins!!

We will pay shipping for the US…if you are outside the US we still invite you to enter, but we’d ask that you please help us pay for shipping.

Ganoderma tsugae (reishi) growing on a fallen hemlock tree

Good Luck!!

~ Melissa Sokulski from Food Under Foot

* If you don’t have a facebook account but would still like to enter, please send me your name, where you live, favorite wild edible and what you love to do with it…send it to Melissa@FoodUnderFoot.com, subject: Reishi Give-Away, and we will get you entered to win. Please also make sure you are registered for our newsletter (upper right margin) to hear if you win! Get your entry in by January 8, 2012!!

What a fun year this was for us! We did so many great things with wild edibles…I thought it would be fun to take a look back.

In March, we were fortunate enough to have a friend with maple trees who allowed us to stay with her for a couple weeks. We had the opportunity to tap her trees (with spiles we made out of staghorn sumac branches):

Placing the jug over the spile to collect the sap

Collect the raw sap and boil it into maple syrup and maple candies.

maple candies

Later in March we released The Wild Ally Workbook, which you are able to purchase at a price YOU CHOOSE. I love that so many people decided to get this book and chose a wild plant to work with throughout the year while supporting our efforts here at Food Under Foot. The book was written in response to a very common question which Melissa hears on her walks: “What is the best way to learn about wild edible plants?” If you haven’t gotten yours yet, now is a great time to get yours in preparation for studying wild plants in 2012!

At the end of April we began finding morel mushrooms! We found morels until mid-May.

Black Morel

In May we made dandelion wine!

a gallon of dandelion blossoms

In June we gathered Reishi mushrooms (Ganoderma tsugae) in gorgeous old growth hemlock forests in Northern Pennsylvania.

Ganoderma tsugae - a type of reishi mushroom - growing out of a fallen hemlock tree

In July we discovered wild huckleberries while camping on Grape Island in Boston Harbor with our friends.

Two lovely young ladies gathering huckleberries from a tree in the Boston Harbor Islands

And on the winter solstice we tried our wonderfully sweet and spicy dandelion wine - yum!

Dandelion Wine

We are looking forward to 2012! We have such exciting news to share with you…but for now it’s fun to look back on the past year and all the fun we had.

Thank you so much for being part of Food Under Foot! We love sharing our love of wild edible plants with you, and look forward to more exciting times in 2012.

Happy New Year!

~ Melissa, Dave, and Jason
The Folks at Food Under Foot

Burdock Burrs

So. Here is a dead burdock plant (Arctium lappa). You can’t dig the roots on this one. If you walk too close the burrs stick to you and getting them off can be a pain.

But is there more here than meets the eye?

In fact there is (but you probably knew I’d say that!)

Inside the burrs are the burdock seeds. This is why the burdocks stick to anything that walks by: to spread its seed around. You’ll likely pick off those burrs sometime later, deposit the seeds there and voila, the plant has traveled. Those seeds will take root and a new burdock plant will grow.

And the seeds themselves? Useful, of course! In Chinese medicine the seeds are known as Niu Bang Zi and are boiled into a tea. They treat constipation and also help bring out a rash if someone is coming down with something like measles or mumps. This progresses the disease along to help speed healing.

One trick to making burdock seed tea: use the whole burr. Don’t open the burr to get the seeds out unless you are wearing protective eye wear like goggles. Don’t get me wrong: the burr opens very easily, but those velcro-like outer burrs break off and float through the air…I know from experience this winds up in a trip to the ER (or a very nice/patient eye doctor who will see you in her/his office at any hour.) It isn’t worth it. Just bundle the burrs up in a cloth tea bag and boil the whole thing in water for 20 - 30 minutes.

So just because a plant looks/is dead doesn’t mean there isn’t a whole lot going on!

Happy Foraging - even in winter!

~ Melissa Sokulski, Food Under Foot

Winter foraging can be fun, and a cup of steaming evergreen needle tea is some of the best the winter can offer. Brewing a pot of this on the stove infuses the whole house with a wonderful smell.

Blue Spruce

Evergreen needles such as pine, spruce, fir, cedar and hemlock (the evergreen tree, NOT the deadly poisonous plants!) are edible and high in vitamin C and has saved American explorers from scurvy. Native Americans brewed both the needles and inner bark of these trees into tonic and medicinal tea.

Though in the spring the newest needles are used to brew tea, in the winter any fresh looking needles will do. I usually add the needles to water and bring it to a boil for a few minutes, then turn off the heat and continue to let the needles steep in the water for 20 minutes or more before drinking. The tea can be sweetened with honey if desired.

White Cedar

Not all evergreens are edible! The yew - a very common hedge plant is extremely poisonous. You will often find yews in the landscape around people’s houses, but some have escaped and do grow wild. They have flat evergreen needles and red berries in the summer and fall, but they do not have cones like the edible plants mentioned above. Please make sure you know with 100% certainty which plant you have before brewing it into tea.

Happy foraging!

Melissa Sokulski, Food Under Foot

Yesterday we started a wild winter foraging walk through our neighborhood in Pittsburgh, PA. Here it is December 26 and not only are edible greens abounding, there are edible flowers around!

I showed you dandelion, bittercress, garlic mustard, onion grass, burdock, dead nettle and goldenrod. Today we’ll start with Common Mallow (Malva), which is a delicious, fresh-tasting edible which makes a wonderful base for a salad, along with other non-bitter greens like chickweed and dead nettle.

Common Mallow

Here is a common thistle. There were many of these rosettes around, thriving! I’ve never taken the time to de-thistle and eat, but if you needed to for survival, this is a very good green.

Thistle

Plantain. Here we have the narrow leafed variety. We saw some broad-leaf plantain, too, as well as some leftover dried stalks of the broad leafed plantain, which still contain seeds, another good edible.

Thin leaved plantain, Plantago lanceolata

Here is the delicate and delicious chickweed, Stellaria media, one of my favorite fresh greens and found in abundance all winter long, even under snow which I will demonstrate if - er, I mean when - we get snow this year.

Chickweed, Stellaria media

There was also lots of white and red clover leaves around. Here is a picture with two big red clover flowers in blossom!

red clovers...with flowers! December 26, Pittsburgh, PA

There were also evergreens in the ‘hood such as blue spruce, cedar, and fir trees. The needles from these make a refreshing tea which can be enjoyed all winter long. More on that coming soon!

Happy foraging!

Melissa Sokulski, Food Under Foot

It was December 26 when I took these pictures around my neighborhood here in Pittsburgh PA. The ground is still not frozen and plants like dandelion, chickweed and purple dead nettle are actually flowering! Goldenrod, too…you’ll see the pictures below.

It would be easy to make green salads from all these edibles…a survivalist certainly would not starve! Greens are loaded with vitamins and minerals, and even have good amounts of protein.

Here are some of the edibles we found walking around today:

Deliciously mustardy bitter cress. This was all around the neighborhood. It is great in salads or even in stir-fries, and there is plenty.

Bittercress...deliciously mustardy, great in salads and growing abundantly!

Below is purple dead nettle, Lamium purpureum. An edible plant not related to nettle, it gets its common name because the leaves look a bit like nettle but the plant does not sting (hence “dead”.)

Purple dead nettle - with flowers! In December! Not related to nettles, but sort of looks like it. Does not sting, hence the name.

Here you will find a flowering dandelion! There were a bunch around the neighborhood, along with lots of gorgeous green leaves. This one next to another basal rosette of bittercress.

Flowering dandelion plant, next to a flowering bittercress.

Garlic mustard…you’ll find this throughout winter, along with the onion grass, below.

Garlic mustard

Onion grass

Looking for something heartier? You can still dig burdock root as long as the ground isn’t frozen and you can find basal rosettes of burdock leaves:

Burdock leaves...the ground is still not frozen so the root can be dug.

Add the flowers of these goldenrod - along with the yellow dandelion flowers, purple red clover and dead nettle flowers, white chickweed and bitter cress flowers that we saw today - to your salad and your family will think you’ve traveled to spring and back!

Goldenrod, flowering!

There was more…should I overwhelm you or save it for tomorrow’s post? Mallow, clover, plantain, chickweed…

‘Til tomorrow…happy foraging!

Melissa Sokulski from Food Under Foot