Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Most sea vegetables are edible, except for some thin thread-like seaweeds. Collect seaweed
from below the high-water line, and do not eat if from polluted waters. They are rich in vitam-
ins and minerals, but many have a strong fishy taste. Soak in fresh water to remove salt and im-
prove the taste. Eat seaweed raw or cooked into soups and stews, or dry it for later use. Fresh
seaweed spoils quickly.
Foraging for Food
After a long winter, our ancestors usually ran outside and picked a fresh salad from the first
green shoots of spring. After living on salt pork, dried beans, and old roots from the root cellar,
fresh greens were a welcome change. One spring, I remember going hunting for a wild spring
delicacy called “fiddleheads” (young fern shoots). We found what we thought were fiddle-
heads, brought them home, steamed a batch and gave them a try. They were awful! They made
your mouth pucker and your throat gag. Not knowing any better, we had picked the furry kind
of fern shoot, instead of the “furless” fern shoots. The next week, we found some of the right
kind of fiddleheads, and they were sweet, tender, and delicious.
Warning:
Never eat any wild plant unless you have 100 percent positive identification that
it is edible, or you have taken the time to complete the three-day plant edibility test described
above. A small bite of certain plants is enough to kill an adult.
Brief Guide to Wild Edible Foods
There are thousands of edible varieties of plants in North America. Some edible plants are truly
delicious, but many considered edible taste bad and are primarily useful only in survival situ-
ations. A few of the more common and tasty wild edible plants are listed below. I suggest that
you pick up one or two “real” guides to edible plants in your geographical region. Samuel
Thayer's two topics,
Natures Garden
and
The Forager's Harvest
, provide an excellent intro-
duction to foraging. They focus in great detail on perhaps a couple of hundred edible wild
plants, providing great detail about locating, identifying, harvesting, and preparing them. Steve
Brill's
Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild and Not So Wild Places
is another excellent start. It is entertaining, practical, and offers varied cooking suggestions and
recipes, though it lacks the detailed color photographs from various seasons that are included in
Thayer's topics.
A good plant guide will also warn you about potentially poisonous “look-alike” plants that
might be confused with the one that you think you are identifying. Harvesting wild edible
plants can be fun and will help you make your diet more complete by adding more vitamins,
