Sunday, September 5, 2010

The score: 92 down, 8 to go!


We are always busier than we intend to be. So since we have not blogged about all of these, I have included brief information about our experiences with some of these plants in addition to a score. I’ve noticed a lot of 3s below which may seem a bit low, but 3 means we like them and would use them again—they simply aren’t sensational. In addition, many plants’ scores change depending on how they are prepared. None of these scores are set in stone, since we’ve tried many of these foods only once or twice.

74. Amaranth greens—we picked these “weeds” out of our friend’s school garden. We prepared them in a stir fry and they are just as good as spinach and swiss chard--4
75. hazelnut—see posts--5
76. rosehips—we collected and nibbled these during our week at the beach in Maine—Yub Yub loves them--5
77. elderberry—in jam—5—in baked goods—2
78. evening primrose—threw them into a salad--3
79. black cherries—nibbled a few raw—have a ton in the freezer—intend to turn into cherry applesauce or stew them up with some maple syrup to stir into oatmeal--3
80. Chicken of the woods: Laetiporus sulphureus—see post--5
81. Lacaria ochropurpurea (purple mushroom)—see post--3
82. Milkies: lacterius hygrophoroides—see post--3
83. Lacterius vulemus—see post--2
84. Slippery caps—suillius granulatus—see post--4
85. wild grape—see post--3
86. flowering red raspberry—a bramble which produces a beautiful, wide reddish fruit, which we mistakenly called thimbleberry for years—drier than most other bramble fruits: Ooga—5, Thag--3
87. yarrow—prepared the dried leaf into tea—we’re not much into herbal teas—this one tastes a lot like chamomile—I dislike chamomile—our score is 2, but if you like chamomile, you will probably like it
88. pineapple weed—prepared this adorable plant into a tea—smells like pinapple when you pick it and dry it in the oven (at super low temps, of course), but smells and tastes like chamomile tea when prepared--2
89. black walnuts—we did not collect any, yet, but Arena gave us some she collected last year which we shelled and pulled the meat from—deeper in flavor than the walnuts in the supermarket—truly remarkable--5
90. hawthorne berries—a lot like rosehips in flavor and preparation--5
91. wild apples—depends on the variety—we find ancient, escaped, and abandoned apple trees everywhere around here—anywhere from a 1 to a 5
92. autumn olives—just coming into ripeness—tangy and sweet—cranberry like in flavor, but much sweeter—so far we have just nibbled them raw--looking forward to cooking them--4




Our goal is within sight, but many of the fall edibles take a lot of processing (like acorns) so we have a busy season ahead. And we have no intention of stopping at 100 just because we meet our goal. Happy foraging.

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