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We have lots of campers here at Food Under Foot! Hello to you all! Thanks so much for your emails. We love camping, too, and camping is a fantastic time to find and use wild edibles.

There are some things to be aware of: not all parks want you to pick plants, so find out the rules at each park. Some parks do not mind if you pick invasive weeds like garlic mustard, burdock, nettles, Japanese Knotweed (etc) and will even spray or pull these themselves, so it’s worthwhile to ask. We’ve come across parks where they don’t want you to pick any plants (but mushrooms were ok there), to others who will say weeds such as the ones mentioned above are ok.

We also never pick endangered or protected plants like Trillium, Ferns, or Goldenseal.

When we do harvest plants to eat we only pick what we will eat immediately, so as not to overpick or waste anything. When we are harvesting something like garlic mustard or burdock root from places where they tell you it’s ok (sometimes they’ll be thrilled!) we sometimes do pick more to dry or use later.

Lately we have found the best wild edibles camping! Chickweed, violets, lambs quarters and garlic mustard make wonderful salads. We usually bring a bottle of salad dressing, but really these wild edibles are so fresh and delicious you could eat them plain!

These flavorful edibles also make a good trailside nibble if you get hungry on a hike. Also wild berries will be in season soon…those are always fun to nibble while camping!

Other wild edibles such as morel and other edible mushrooms and nettles are excellent sauteed, and can be eaten over rice or pasta.

Roots such as burdock are excellent cooked into soups or with rice, giving a rich earthy flavor.

Some wild edibles you can find while camping are great as medicines, too. If you get stung by a bee look for plantain (some call it fairy bandaid) to chew and place on the sting.

If you get stung by nettles, you’ll likely find burdock or yellow dock leaves nearby…chew those and apply to the nettle sting.

Poison Ivy? Go back into the woods and look for jewelweed, crush and apply this plant to your itchy rash. Plantain will also work to take the itch away.

Wild edibles are full of nutrition and medicinal properties and are excellent to use while camping!

We’ll be sure to bring you more camping adventures as the season progresses (we’re going again later this week!) Make sure you let us know about your camping wild culinary adventures as well!

~ Melissa Sokulski

Food Under Foot
Birch Center for Health

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On our last morel hike, we found four small black morels, and some larger yellow morels. This time we added them to a potato kugel. The flavor of the morels was somewhat lost in this dish, so it wasn’t the best way to showcase the morels. But it was delicious, so I wanted to share it with you!

A Kugel is a Jewish dish made traditionally with pasta or potatoes and eggs. It is often sweet but can be savory like this one.

Morel Potato Kugel.

• Morels, chopped
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups chopped spinach
• 2 Tbsp butter or olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• 4 potatoes, cubed and steamed
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup grated cheese, such as cheddar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350.

Peel and cube 4 potatoes and steam them.

Saute chopped morels, onions and spinach in butter for about 15 minutes, until onions are translucent and morels are wilted.

Mix four eggs with 1/2 cup milk, yogurt or cream, salt and pepper.

Mix eggs, potatoes and vegetables together and pour into a 9 by 13 baking pan.

Sprinkle a cup of shredded cheese on top.

Bake about 45 minutes.

I hope you enjoy the kugel!

Have you found morels this year? What do you like to do with them? What else are you eating this spring? We’d love to hear from you!

~ Melissa Sokulski

Food Under Foot and Birch Center for Health

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Today I want to share with you a delicious recipe I made using the morels we gathered at morel madness! (Actually, we weren’t as lucky on the evening hike as we were in the morning, but we had generous hikers and camping neighbors who actually shared the morels they found with us!!!)

Morels must be cooked to neutralize their toxins. Eaten raw, morels will make you sick. Even when you cook them, you should avoid consuming alcohol when eating morels, as this also is known to cause problems.

Morels should also be cut in half lengthwise. Always cut morels open to make sure they are 100% hollow inside. Edible morels are 100% hollow…poison look-alikes will have chambers or cottony filling, that is a give away! Double check every mushroom by slicing it open. Also, there are sometimes bugs inside so you’ll want to get those out of there!

Recipe for Morel Mushroom Frittata:

• Morels, cut in half lengthwise and cleaned
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 2 cups spinach (or use a wild edible like lambs quarters or nettles), chopped
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 5 eggs
• 1/4 tsp salt
• pepper to taste
• 2 Tbsp milk, cream, or half and half
• 1 cup shredded chedder (or other favorite) cheese

1. Turn on broiler.

2. Crack eggs into bowl, add milk or cream, salt and pepper and whisk. Set aside.

3. In a cast iron skillet, melt the butter and saute onions and morels until morels are soft, about 15 minutes. (Medium heat.) Add spinach and cook another minute until spinach wilts.

4. Pour in egg mixture and cook until bottom sets but top is still wiggly, about 5 minutes.

5. Put cheese on top and put in broiler for a minute, until browned.

Serve immediately and enjoy! (Also good cold.)

~ Melissa

Food Under Foot
Birch Center for Health

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We finally found and tasted edible morel mushrooms!

Thanks to the incredible generosity of the Western PA Mushroom Club (this is an amazing club…weekly hikes, monthly meetings and special events) we had a great weekend learning about morel and other edible mushrooms!

Three hikes were led by experienced park rangers and mycologists, and we actually found morel mushrooms!

The event is at Mingo Creek County Park near Washington, PA. We camped and got the chance to meet friendly people. Two slide shows, three hikes, an astronomy program at the planetarium, bonfire, roasted marshmallows…you couldn’t ask for a better time!

We sauteed the mushrooms with butter and onions and they were delicious.

Tomorrow you’ll find my recipe for the delicious morel frittata I made!

~ Melissa

Food Under Foot
Acupuncturist, Birch Center for Health
Pittsburgh, PA

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Another edible mushroom we found on our hike with the Western Pa Mushroom Club was a bolete called Old Man of the Woods.

Boletes are mushrooms that grow up from the ground, and the underside has pores instead of gills. The Old Man of the Woods has characteristic black bumps along the top and stalk and has white to gray pores underneath. When bruised or cut, the mushroom eventually turns black. (Beware of boletes which bruise blue quickly, these are often poisonous.)

This mushroom was positively identified for us by members of the club, and we carefully wrapped it in wax paper and placed it in our bag with our other edible mushrooms (the chanterelles).

We’d heard the Old Man is a tasty mushroom, as long as you don’t mind it turning everything black as it cooks. In the books, though, we found it was “edible” but not worth eating. We decided to try it.

We sliced the Old Man when we got home

and sauteed it in olive oil, red onions and salt.

It did turn black. It is a meaty mushroom, though had a bit of slimy-ness to it. All in all, it was very good, reminiscent of portebellos.

A couple good mushroom guide books are National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (National Audubon Society Field Guides), and Mushrooms Demystified
), which is especially good for those on the west coast.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan has a wonderful chapter about mushrooms in it as well, be sure to check that out.

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Today Dave, Ella and I did something new: we went for a hike with the Western PA Mushroom Club!

Our two day camping trip to Raccoon Creek State Park prompted our interest in mushrooms. While there to get a glimpse of the Perseid Meteor Shower away from the city lights, we noticed an abundance of mushrooms! We stopped in to the nature center at the Wildflower Reserve, and the woman brought us out some great books on mushrooms that we poured over.

One thing we learned was that although mushrooms can be extremely dangerous and deadly, not to be afraid to dig them up and take a look at them. (I have always been too afraid to even touch anything!)

So we took pictures, took notes, went back to the books and found a huge amount of interesting information! By observation, I noticed some mushrooms had “gills” and others “pores.” When we returned to town we looked up the Mushroom Club, found that they walk just about every Saturday morning from spring through November, and so we set out with them today.

The exciting thing was the harvest of tasty (once cooked!) chanterelles! Look for our entry on them coming soon!

A good book we found for identifying mushrooms is the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (National Audubon Society Field Guides)
or go to our Amazon page of Recommended Mushroom Books.

Have fun, stay safe!

~ Melissa

Food Under Foot