Arthur Haines at New England Primitive Skills Gathering

Arthur's book is in the Foraging Family's top 5 recommended wild plant guides. 

If there are such things as botanical rock stars, Arthur Haines must be one.  He's recently finished the gargantuan Flora Nova Angliae, the most comprehensive key and manual to New England plants.  His name is dropped in circles of plant lovers like the New England Wildflower Society where I volunteer.  And he's in the upper echilon of experienced American foragers.  So I was delighted to see him at this year's New England Primitive Skills Gathering, a little gathering of aspiring cave men, women, and kids. 

To top it all off, Arthur is an engaging, theatrical speaker.  He began his plant walk by sitting in a patch of poison ivy, plucking a leaflet, and rubbing it against his forearm until we onlookers were sufficiently convinced that he had gotten the plants oils all over his skin.  After reassurances that he does indeed react to poison ivy, he promised to show how he would avoid that rash even after such thorough exposure.  He definitely had my attention. 

I've been in the audience of many an edible plant walk and led some myself.  Most entail the following formula:  1.  walk along roadside or through park, 2.  find interesting edible plant, 3.  give its name and field marks, describe its edible parts, tell how to prepare it, 4.  resume walking.  Arthur's presentation was no exception to this tried and true format.  What was different was the depth of knowledge that he brought to the table.  Not only did he tell us names and uses, he told stories of the plant's use in Native America complete with mini-lessons on Passamaquoddy language.  He explained the phyto-chemistry of each plant, why certain plants had evolved to manufacture a given compound, and what effects it had on the human body and our inner ecosystem of microbes.  He digressed into commentaries on diet and human evolution, the so-called paleo movement (a diet and fitness movement supposedly based on ancestral eating), and the costs that humans have made by moving from wild foods to selectively-bred and genetically-modified agricultural ones. 

I left enriched and inspired--and with several new wild plants to try.  (Boy, were they good!  Look for posts later this week.)  I also left with some key advice on preventing poison ivy rash.  (Yes, for those out there in the know, the secret is jewelweed (Impatiens capensis).  This I knew long before this weekend.  What I hadn't known was that the chemical responsible for preventing the rash, lawsone, is a red pigment and is found in greatest concentration in the noticeably reddened parts of the stem of the jewelweed, usually near the base.  I also learned that because lawsone acts by binding to the skin more aggresively than the rash-causing chemical in poison ivy, jewelweed is not an effective treatment for poison ivy after the rash has developed.  Now there's a myth I've heard oft-repeated.)  If you ever get the chance to forage with Arthur Haines, I highly recommend it. 

The Score: 45 down, 55 to go

Our fridge is full of baggies containing edible odds and ends we need to cook up. Our front porch hosts a few baskets containing edibles we find in the yard. On our trip to Connecticut this weekend, we weeded Thag's mother's ivy specifically to collect the edible weeds growing in it. We stopped the car to collect on the side of the road. We are busy with edibles and are still having trouble keeping up with all this season has to offer.

So...

31. Morel mushrooms--absolutely divine--5

32. Dryad's saddle mushrooms--pungent and chewy--Thag--4, Ooga--1

33. Cattail rhizome flour--labor intensive to process, but sweet and nutty in flavor--5

34. Mint--no description necessary--5

35. Jewel weed--slightly slimy and a bit limp after all the boiling, but mild in flavor--3

36. Sheep sorrel--sour and lemony--easy to use in a variety of recipes--4

37. Wood sorrel--lovely little heart shaped leaves, tastes very similar to sheep sorrel, easy to find--great salad green--4

38. Clover greens--easy to find, hide well in a salad, tough if old--3

39. Milk weed shoots--easy to gather, should be peeled, cook like green beans, get 'em young--4

40. Thistle stalk--use like celery--deep, yet subtle, in flavor--good in sauces--4

41. Black locust flowers--sweet and fragrant, utterly heavenly--5

42. Thistle petiole--use like thistle stalk, but more work intensive--3

43. Burdock petiole--a pain to process, requires two boilings, gentle flavor, easy to incorporate into any veggie dish like a stir fry--3

44. Sumac shoots--we don't think we did these right--supposed to be sweet and juicy--we found them slightly bitter--until further notice, 2

45. Chickweed greens--easy to find, nice lettucy flavor, can be cooked or eaten raw--4

Mint, Sheep Sorrel, and Jewelweed

Tonight's menu:

Appetizer--sheep sorrel salad

Main course--Bean and cheese wraps filled with boiled jewel weed greens

Dessert--Strawberries with mint infused birch syrup

The lowdown:

Sheep sorrel is a lemony flavored green which can be eaten throughout its growing season. It is sour and delicious. Our salad was half garden salad greens and half sheep sorrel greens. We have eaten wood sorrel on many occasions and the two plants contain the same chemical (oxalic acid) that gives them their characteristic sour lemony flavor.

Jewelweed greens are as slippery to eat as they feel when you gather them. I (Thag) like the texture. Ooga was not as fond, though we both agreed that they are a solid 3 on our rating scale. The field guides direct us to pick shoots that are shorter than six inches and boil in two changes of water (for 15 minutes total). Ooga efficiently has the next bath boiling in the kettle when the first one is drained away. I remember eating this green in high school as one of my first wild edible experiments. Some hard earned wisdom: Cut the stems in the field rather than uprooting and cutting off the roots later. It makes the plants much easier to process and to clean.

The wild mint was gathered with Arena last weekend, we used it to flavor our birch syrup from this spring. The flavors were delightful over strawberries, and the mint was the perfect compliment to the sweet and slightly astringent birch. All we did to infuse was to boil the mint in the syrup with just enough water to keep the syrup from turning to sugar.