Early Greens--A Foraging Family Easter

Thag:

Holy cow! I have been sick as a dog for over a week now. This weekend's unseasonably warm weather found me lethargic, and our plans for an Easter weekend of foraging in sunny Connecticut got pared down. Instead of picking greens, I found myself reading Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager in the hammock in my mother's garden. Langdon Clark, the author, is a Northwest Coast forager who really goes to town on the fish and shellfish of the Puget Sound area. He has re-inspired me to think about fishing as a foraging activity despite the fact that most local freshwater fish will start a Geiger counter ticking out the time to Flight of the Bumblebee. (Okay, that's unearned hyperbole. Their full of heavy metals not radiation.) Check out Langdon Clark's blog at <fat-of-the-land.blogspot.com/>.

As the weekend wore on, my viral-induced fog began to clear. Laura would drive the windy suburban road of Southington, CT, the town where we grew up, and I would botanize the weeds growing on the roadside at 30 mph. I didn't have enough energy to go pick skunk cabbage in the ravine, but we gathered enough wild onions (Allium spp.) and day lily (Hemerocallis fulva) greens to add some variety to the salad with Easter dinner and as seasoning for the Cornish game hen we cooked up.