28 April 2017

Friday Question: LIVE (from my cutting board) Wild Edibles

It's been a week of plant-walking (because that's a thing), and a few minutes ago I dug these up. Behold, the prettiest cutting board our the trailer park. I just made myself giggle.

Let's get back to Friday Questions, shall we?

Friday Question: What wild edibles have you eaten, either now or as a kid? How did/do you eat them? What did you fancy? What did you not enjoy?

Or... anything you'd like to add/ask.

I had violets yesterday. Enjoyed the blossom but the leaves tasted of perfume. Phew. Not a fan. But the wild onions and garlic. Yeah, baby. That's the good stuff.

LIVE FROM MY CUTTING BOARD

35 comments:

  1. I don't recall my mother having wild edibles around.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've never eaten any wild edible plants, just wild edible animals like deer, moose, duck, goose.

    ReplyDelete
  3. never eaten any wild edibles but your onion and garlic sound good.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have eaten dandelion, sheep sorrel and pineapple weed. I don't like dandelion.

    Foraging is one way some of the top restaurants in Newfoundland supply their kitchens.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I eat mostly mundane edibles :/

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dandelions. We always hunted (and gobbled) wild berries. Wild fennel. Mushrooms. Quinces.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I grew up in California and while I didn't find anything like you did, there are fruit tree's all over California. Or at least there were back when I was growing up 40 years ago. I could walk to school and pick a lemon, apple and some wild strawberries from the vacant lot that was across from my school. We had a huge avocado tree in our back yard, 2 different grape vines in the front and wild strawberries all over the front yard.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think it's dinner time, those onions are making my mouth water.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The zero mile diet. Awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love your header! ahh this face!! cute!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Dandelion greens (cooked, with a splash of vinegar), mushrooms, wild berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries). My dad was the woods guy who found all the berry patches and the mushrooms. I loved the smell of mushrooms frying in butter but the taste was a little much for my persnickety taste buds. I participated fully in the picking and eating of the berries, though :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Oh, just thought of another fruit - tiny green apples that were too sour to enjoy and probably would have given us a stomachache if we'd eaten more than a bite, and chokecherries - raw (talk about sour!) or made into jelly (not sour at all because of the added sugar).

    ReplyDelete
  13. Sorry for the triple comment, Ivy. I also now recall eating tiny red berries that grew close to the ground. We called them tea berries but I don't know if that was the proper name. They were quite good.

    I'm so impressed that you are finding wild onions and garlic. Those are such useful plants.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I've never eaten wild edibles,there was always plenty to pick in our own yard or those of neighbours. One neighbour actively encouraged children to jump over the fence and stuff themselves on her grapes, almonds and walnuts because her own children were grown and gone so there was too much fruit just for her. We weren't allowed to eat the peaches though, because she preserved them for winter eating.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I'm always in the mood for garlic or onion, couldn't actually imagine food without them!
    Don't think I've ever eaten anything wild which is sad since I grew up on a large farm surrounded by nature. We had all kinds of herbs and plants growing everywhere around! Come to think of it, as a teen I used to pick and dry elderberry flowers and also cherry stems for winter tea. And we would pick horseradish right from our lawns to grate and eat for Easter with ham. Horseradish has massive jungle like leaves like elephant's ears :) I'm sad I don't have nature around me of that kind now.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Yum to the wild onions and garlic, lovely photograph of yours.

    I also love the Autumn season for picking edible fruits, but whatever the season is, folks who are out and about foraging should always take care, and if you are a diabetic or have any allergies or other underlying health conditions please be aware that not all things growing may be suitable for you.

    Having said that what could be better than having a 'plant walk' or any walk out in the fresh air!

    Enjoy your weekend

    All the best Jan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Jan.

      EVERY plant walker should be 100 percent sure of what they're eating, regardless of health issues.

      That being said, many wild edibles are medicinal and can and do assist in both minor and major health issues. Fascinating stuff and worth the proper look into if you're interested in learning more about the benefits of healing foods.

      Delete
    2. "EVERY plant walker should be 100 percent sure of what they're eating, regardless of health issues."
      Agree with this Ivy ...

      It is just so lovely to get out and about though isn't it.

      All the best Jan

      Delete
    3. Yes, Jan. It really is. We have a back deck attached to my lab/kitchen so I'm out there often.

      PS: If interested, there are wild edibles that are good for balancing blood glucose as well as help with allergies and autoimmune issues. If you fancy, take a look-see. You might find something helpful right in your own yard.

      Delete
  17. As a child, I ate puffball fried in butter, leeks that my mom dug out of the small forest close to our place, elderberries (yuck!) made into elderberry pie (fussy, tiny berries that were a pain in the neck to get off the branches), and a part of a weed that we called "cheese wheels" but I have no idea what the proper name was. We just picked them and ate them as we were playing around outside. Now I have some tiny wild blackberries that grow around the edge of my property that I'll just pick and eat, but not enough to actually make anything with them. -Jenn

    ReplyDelete
  18. Love the term plant walking, we pick chicken of the woods and chanterell mushrooms and blackberries, would love to find wild onions and garlic.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I've eaten wild blackberries and strawberries. Do they count?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Best way to eat violets is definitely crystalised Ivy. When I was a youngster we used to go picking field mushrooms before the crack of dawn. Bit like Portobellas delicious. Wild spinach was another veg we ate too.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Wild onions and garlic. That is definitely good stuff. I've eaten dandelion leaves in my younger years. My mom made a salad of them quite often. I wasn't the biggest fan but they were quite popular with many people I knew.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I guess I haven't knowingly eaten any of that, but I would be game to try!

    ReplyDelete
  23. How cool to go for a walk in the woods...and bring home food! Without even using a firearm!
    Hope you are having a great weekend...
    Cheers!
    Linda :o)

    ReplyDelete
  24. Mmm...wild green onions and garlic. I can only imagine. Personally, I grew up in North Carolina and California. CA wasn't good for finding much (unless you count the neighbor's orange trees), but NC on the other hand... I'd argue the wild blackberry bushes were always the best.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I've been foraging seriously for about ten years now, and there are a lot of good resources out there. One of my favorites is Eat the Invaders. A lot of the worst invasive plants, and animals, are edible. Garlic mustard, curly dock, and Japanese knotweed are all edible, and all delicious. I'm also a big fan of Green Deane's Eat the Weeds website, and his Youtube channel is really fantastic. The pokeweed is starting to come up. It's mildly poisonous, so you have to boil it at least twice, but it has a good flavor. I find it best to mix the greens, some of the plants have high oxalic acid levels, so they aren't good for people prone to kidney stones- mixing and matching is good.

    I've been scarfing down nettles, knotweed, and garlic mustard for the past couple of weeks, but on Friday night, I had the best foraging find of my life... while not even looking for anything, I found morel mushrooms at midnight, growing under a lamppost.

    Have fun, foraging is a really good hobby, economical too.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I have never tried it before. It looks great.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I'm not sure if I have or not - maybe as a kid, eated wild edibles - I know there was a type of grass that I would chew sometimes but don't know what it was. I live in the mountains and I'm pretty sure we have some up here.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I've had dandelion, ginger and nettle as teas and as a kid I enjoyed mangoes and bananas and avocados from neighbor's yards picked from the ground...would not trust foraging these days where I live...too many chemical sprays.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Hello Gang. I LOVED reading your comments. Some of these I'd not heard of yet and that was fun too. Great fun guys. Thanks to all. You guys rock.

    ReplyDelete
  30. I grew up on a farm in Wisconsin, so as a kid we at a lot of wild foods. Every year we would pick Hickory nuts (they are similar to a pecan) all kinds of berries, mushrooms, plums.....

    ReplyDelete