The official foraging thread

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podz

podz

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OK, so here it is - the official foraging thread. I bet this will be the first thread on the forum to reach 1 million posts!

Here where I live, we have so called "everyman's right" - people can not stop you from going on their property to pick berries and mushrooms, or even just to camp and walk around. There are lots of blueberries and porcini mushrooms. Many other types of mushrooms as well. Nettles, dandelions, and some other things I don't know how to translate into english. We even have lots of wild hops growing around here (about 100 years ago, it used to be mandatory for everyone to grow them).

What do you forage for in your neck of the woods?
 
I have wild raspberries that grow on my lawn, and am always on the lookout for other berries when I am on trails. Also, I live near the ocean and love collecting mussels to steam.
 
We own some property, and we have hundreds of thousands of acres (actually, a couple of million of acres counting state and federal lands) of public land around us.

This year, we have found oyster mushrooms, native grapes, apples, crabapples, chokecherries, blackberries, plums, elderberries, leeks, and of course our own yard with cherries, raspberries, rhubarb and our garden. We also hunt (venison, mostly, but some others) and fish. We see wild hops everywhere, but don't harvest them.

We don't eat food out of a package as a rule.

I make wine out of much of the fruit, but we also use venison nearly daily. Last week I made a wonderful venison and oyster mushroom dish with a brandy sauce.

When we are in Texas, we fish and harvest shellfish, but in the winter we don't see any fruited plants.
 
I've been meaning to have a foraging day feast for a while but never have done it. The object is to go around collecting ingredients for the day's meals from the wild. I have a friend who was quite good at knowing plants and things. He has a great recipe for wild leek potato soup with pepper bread. I think it would be fun to try this, but alas, life has gotten in the way. I wish I lived closer to a whole bunch of state and federal land!

Around here most people get upset if you trespass on their property and they can file against you for taking what's growing on their land. Even the right of way strip along the highways are only public for the purpose of transportation. You can walk through there, but you can't take the stuff! I've heard of a county sheriff being caught taking some asparagus along the ditch area.
 
I gather dandelions & common plantain out of the yard all spring & summer, I have foraged in the forest for morel mushrooms & huckleberries; I've also foraged for pine nuts, but it's a bit of a drive to find the pinon pines. I fish for trout often throughout the year & sometimes I'll set a crawfish trap. I usually hunt deer in autumn. I used to pop a few squirrels now & then. When I was a kid & living back east, I used to eat nettles (gotta get 'em young!) and wild raspberries. I used to get clams out of the river too. We used to gather poke weed (gotta get it young!) & eat it with scrambled eggs. We used to go frog gigging at night on the weekends & have a nice little feast of frog legs.
Regards, GF.
 
Wild grapes grow everywhere here, and they are awesome! The wild ones are called bullosk, not muscadines or scuppernongs, those are the cultivated ones but they look and taste about the same. My parents say that my bullosk wine is better than any commercial muscadine wine they've had. Another thing I'm on the lookout for is blackberries, but they can be extremely bitter if not perfectly ripe. I recently learned that dandelion leaves make a good bitter salad green.

I'm looking forward to learning a lot from this thread!
 
I used to do a lot more foraging and got out of it. We lived in Italy for a couple of years and it is more common over there. I used to walk the hills and pick wild figs (far better than anything cultivated), blackberries, asparagus, and tons of other good stuff. Now back in the States, it seems that the squirrels get everything just before it is ripe. Still have venison and squirrel but rely on my own garden, rabbits and chickens for the rest. Hoping to get some inspiration from this thread to get back into wildcrafting. I hate to buy anything from the grocery, but certainly don't buy anything packaged.
 
Homercidal said:
I've been meaning to have a foraging day feast for a while but never have done it. The object is to go around collecting ingredients for the day's meals from the wild. I have a friend who was quite good at knowing plants and things. He has a great recipe for wild leek potato soup with pepper bread. I think it would be fun to try this, but alas, life has gotten in the way. I wish I lived closer to a whole bunch of state and federal land!

Around here most people get upset if you trespass on their property and they can file against you for taking what's growing on their land. Even the right of way strip along the highways are only public for the purpose of transportation. You can walk through there, but you can't take the stuff! I've heard of a county sheriff being caught taking some asparagus along the ditch area.
Click to expand...

I forgot about asparagus! We found an enormous plot of asparagus a few years ago, on public land. It must have been an old farmstead as there were old foundations, and many apple trees. I don't think anybody else goes there to harvest it, and it's a big patch. We ate so much asparagus this year that I swear my grandson was turning green. We love it!
 
Dandelion greens are better before they flower,less bitter. Plus the light green lil buds in the crown of the plant are like baby brussel sprouts. That is,if you can get enough of them. Great cooked with rice. I used to have wild grapes growing on the fence at the old house,& a few types of apples. Good stuff. The green part of wild onions can't be cooked tender,but are great for flavoring the water to cook rice in. Kinda like a light asparagus flavor. Dandelion flowers are great in a light colored wine.
 
We purposely make every road trip, hike, fishing or hunting trip into foraging trips. I have never been a fan of the styrofoam spanked, celophane wrapped, pale, pasty pink stuff they call meat in the supermarkets.
We start early in the spring for mushrooms and greens, especially Morels and Fiddlehead Ferns. As summer progresses we move onto puffballs and early boletes for 'shrooms, and many types of greens like sorel but a lot of dandelion and plantain greens. In the fall, more boletes and some secret chanterelles and one of our favorites, the shaggy mane mushrooms and loads of berries; blueberries, cranberries, cloudberries, raspberries, kinnick berries, watermelon berries, rosehips, etc.

I once stumbled onto a large patch of wild ginger in NW Washington State, I wonder if it still there.

We grow a lot of berries and of course a vegetable garden. As said earlier, we get most of our meat from hunting and fishing. We also do clamming, shrimping and crabbing and gather edible seaweeds.

It all comes down to; we want to know what's in our food, we want it to have flavor and texture and we want it to have variety.
 
I know hop shoots can be prepared like asparagus, I'll try that in the spring for sure. I guess if you use wild hop shoots it would be foraged food
 
Yooper said:
I forgot about asparagus! We found an enormous plot of asparagus a few years ago, on public land. It must have been an old farmstead as there were old foundations, and many apple trees. I don't think anybody else goes there to harvest it, and it's a big patch. We ate so much asparagus this year that I swear my grandson was turning green. We love it!
Click to expand...

OH I'm so jealous! I love asparagus and make a nice asparagus soup (If I do say so myself...)

I should try and grow some in our yard. We had some in the neighbors yard when I was a kid and she would give us some for mowing her lawn.
 
I learned to forage as a kid. My grandparents and my parents taught us what was good from the Michigan and Ohio woods and waters. When I left for the Service and started living in other areas of the country, I often took extension or farm co-op courses for the local flora and fauna to get a jump start on the regional goodies. I also bought books for the area, mushrooms, edible plants and berries, wildlife and fish guides, etc. Anything to give me an edge on the outdoors for where i was living at the time. Of course, nothing beat making friends with knowledgeable locals.

In that manner, I learned to forage, hunt and fish from Maine to Florida and west to the Mississippi River. I got a good handle on many things Hawaiian and also, the great Northwest.

Next year we're moving to Arizona so I'll get to add the southwest to my foraging resume. Already been buying books and joined a couple of Arizona blog sites!
 
This year I hit the motherload with a haul of close to 100 lbs of plums, apples, pears, rowan berries, corn and to a lesser extent mushrooms and wallnuts. Made me think out of the box to use it all up which produced some great (and some not so great) new dishes.
 
BadMrFrosty said:
This year I hit the motherload with a haul of close to 100 lbs of plums, apples, pears, rowan berries, corn and to a lesser extent mushrooms and wallnuts. Made me think out of the box to use it all up which produced some great (and some not so great) new dishes.
Click to expand...

Why did you have to use it all up?
 
podz said:
Why did you have to use it all up?
Click to expand...

It was mostly the plums. I had already made loads of preserves, wines, had the freezer loaded up etc. I ended up with zero space and about 10lbs of plums that would spoil if not used. I used them in many different recipes as a substitute for tomatoes, in curries that worked extremely well!
 
Mostly we forage for berries and mushrooms out here. Pretty much a given that you will pick a quart or two of huckleberries if you hike during that season. I personally enjoy thimbleberries but they are hard to come by at the right time. Morels are really plentiful here as well. I am looking forward to harvesting some dandelion greens in the spring for the first time. Anyone have a reference book on edible plants by region? I would love to pick one up.
 
pretty good year for porcini here, so that's my #1. sponge mushroom, shaggy mane, chicken mushroom, boletus badius, honey mushroom, a few others. on the plant side of things, sloes (for patxarran and sloe gin), lots of elderflowers, elderberries, lots of nettles, ramp, obviously blackberries, apples and crabapples, rose hips, chestnuts although they are pretty lame up this far north, feral walnuts, occasionally blueberries. sometimes papaver somniferum heads- garden escapees. wild hops grow all over the place but generally smell like diesel so i collect them decoratively only.
 
kaconga said:
Mostly we forage for berries and mushrooms out here. Pretty much a given that you will pick a quart or two of huckleberries if you hike during that season. I personally enjoy thimbleberries but they are hard to come by at the right time. Morels are really plentiful here as well. I am looking forward to harvesting some dandelion greens in the spring for the first time. Anyone have a reference book on edible plants by region? I would love to pick one up.
Click to expand...

We go to the used book stores here and look. Being a military town a lot of folks transferring sell or donate their books. It's a great way to pick up regional plant, mineral and animal guides on the cheap. Surprisingly, many are very recent editions and sometimes the most recent.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
i just foraged some nettles! latest nettle harvest ever for me, but they were growing new tops so i ate 'em! actually made garlic-nettle-shallot-creamy mashed potatoes to accompany some iberico pork sausages and onion gravy, with mini yorkshire puddings and buttery peas.
 
Homercidal said:
I've been meaning to have a foraging day feast for a while but never have done it. The object is to go around collecting ingredients for the day's meals from the wild. I have a friend who was quite good at knowing plants and things. He has a great recipe for wild leek potato soup with pepper bread. I think it would be fun to try this, but alas, life has gotten in the way. I wish I lived closer to a whole bunch of state and federal land!

Around here most people get upset if you trespass on their property and they can file against you for taking what's growing on their land. Even the right of way strip along the highways are only public for the purpose of transportation. You can walk through there, but you can't take the stuff! I've heard of a county sheriff being caught taking some asparagus along the ditch area.
Click to expand...

We use to do this when I was a kid, a bunch of us would campout on a Saturday and forage food for dinner. Most times it was fish and frog legs with wild onions, cattail root, dandelion greens, and wild asparagus. I still hunt quite a bit and during turkey season we always find and pick a few morel mushrooms for dinner.
 
BikerBrewer said:
We use to do this when I was a kid, a bunch of us would campout on a Saturday and forage food for dinner. Most times it was fish and frog legs with wild onions, cattail root, dandelion greens, and wild asparagus. I still hunt quite a bit and during turkey season we always find and pick a few morel mushrooms for dinner.
Click to expand...

I haven't eaten cattails since I was a kid, I'll have to go get some this spring!
We used to make pancakes with the pollen and ate the new shoots too. The roots we always roasted & peeled, ate them with butter kind of like a potato...
Thanks for jogging my memory!
Regards, GF. :mug:
 
Getting ready to move in a few months, starting to go through rooms and separating into keep, donate or throw away. I was going through the pantry and found a vacuum bag of dried morels we foraged 2 years ago. The bag was still very tightly sealed. So of course we reconstituted them and had them with grilled caribou steaks this weekend, used the mushroom liquid to make a little sauce to go on the grilled new potatoes.
 
Subsailor said:
Getting ready to move in a few months, starting to go through rooms and separating into keep, donate or throw away. I was going through the pantry and found a vacuum bag of dried morels we foraged 2 years ago. The bag was still very tightly sealed. So of course we reconstituted them and had them with grilled caribou steaks this weekend, used the mushroom liquid to make a little sauce to go on the grilled new potatoes.
Click to expand...

You'll be able to forage prickly pear fruit & cactus pads too, if you like them. A drive south & you can forage mesquite beans & saguaro fruit. You'll be able to hunt rattlesnake too, if you want. The trick to hunting rattlesnake is kerosene.

Rattlesnakes can't stand the smell of it, just a wee bit dripped into the crevice they're hiding in will drive them out pretty quickly. You can also be more environmentally friendly & dab some kerosene onto a rag & keep it in a ziploc bag till you need it; then when you find a snake hiding under a rock, just stuff the rag under the rock with a stick & wait.

I used to hunt them with nothing more than a walking stick, a pocket knife & a little 2oz squirt bottle (it used to hold gun oil). Drive 'em out with a squirt of kerosene, pin their heads with my walking stick & cut off their head with the pocket knife. Always bury the head in the dirt & put a rock over it.
Regards, GF.
 
gratus fermentatio said:
You'll be able to forage prickly pear fruit & cactus pads too, if you like them. A drive south & you can forage mesquite beans & saguaro fruit. You'll be able to hunt rattlesnake too, if you want. The trick to hunting rattlesnake is kerosene.

Rattlesnakes can't stand the smell of it, just a wee bit dripped into the crevice they're hiding in will drive them out pretty quickly. You can also be more environmentally friendly & dab some kerosene onto a rag & keep it in a ziploc bag till you need it; then when you find a snake hiding under a rock, just stuff the rag under the rock with a stick & wait.

I used to hunt them with nothing more than a walking stick, a pocket knife & a little 2oz squirt bottle (it used to hold gun oil). Drive 'em out with a squirt of kerosene, pin their heads with my walking stick & cut off their head with the pocket knife. Always bury the head in the dirt & put a rock over it.
Regards, GF.
Click to expand...

GF, it's like you read my mind! My Wife was worried there won't be the foraging down there that we do up here. We bought some guides and books on AZ plants, animals, birds, etc. We were excited to see that they get Morels and Boletes and I am seriously lookinf forward to some prickly pear meads and wines, maybe even a beer. I have eaten and do enjoy eating snake.
 
Just foraged about 4-1/2 lbs of wild muscadine grapes...hoping to make some wine this year. I'll need more grapes, though. I've done(state fair award winning) jelly in the past.

We have 4 circular "courts" in our neighborhood that had crab apples in a round, planted center of each court...planted probably 40years ago. The the HOA management company surprised us one morning a couple of weeks ago...Friday at 7 a.m. crew went through and cut them all down and a guy followed them with a stump grinder. I was SO pissed!!! I was the only one really using them...but they started me into brewing via fermenting cider last Fall. I had previously done crab apple butter and a (2nd place award winning) jelly that I entered at our state fair last year, too. Two neighbors, one of whom I barely know, still have crab apple trees on their own property...now I am going to have to go beg.

I'm too scared to forage mushrooms around here...I don't know enough about then to tell good from bad. One mistake could be my last, so I won't risk it...but I've seen some pretty ones!
 
I forgot all about this thread. A couple weeks ago I picked 15lbs of wild huckleberries, they're sooooo tasty!
Regards, GF.
 
I did get enough grapes for a small batch of muscadine wine. With the bag of crushed grapes, the volume is about 3 gallons. Probably a little more than 2 after the bag comes out and all the racking.
My neighbor told me to pick all the crab apples I want...so I filled a couple buckets...Probably 30lbs or more. I have started a 2 gallon cider with half crabs and half pink cripps with Edinburgh Ale yeast, a couple cinnamon sticks, a few cloves and a drizzle of molasses. Should be tasty!
 
During some recent hikes, I picked prickly pears and the fruit off of Texas Persimmons and Turk's caps. I came across a few Mexican plum's that were ripe. Most of these I eat raw. The prickly pears were made into a syrup that I use to flavor sparkling water, smoothies, and margaritas for my wife.
 
I had never heard of Turk's Caps before, so I Googled...interesting plant! you can use leaves, flowers and berries for various things. I've made Fuzzymittensbrewing's Hi-Nelson Saison with Hibiscus, using dried hibiscus flowers. I'll bet it would be great with the Turk's Caps dried flowers and/or berries!
 
Berries and shrooms here! I also scam up birch twigs for birch beer.
Looking forward to small game hunting season. This will be my sons first year. God bless my grandfather for passing on the passion.

although, its difficult to get out for shrooms beyond the woods behind my.property. Just no time. There's a company in Pittsburgh who collects (buys) foraged flood goods for resale to local restaurants. They love mushroom runs.
 
Any ideas what this is and if it's edible? Spikes on the leaves are deadly, like it's protecting gold!

IMAG3496.jpg
 

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