288757 Fri Mar 22 13:00:09 -0800 2002 37 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1559782 I like the idea of relying on food plants found in my neighborhood. In my part of west Los Angeles there are many citrus trees and almost as many walnut trees. There are banana trees, cardoons, fennel, rosemary, dandelions. If I had a better nose, I'd probably have found the neighborhood bay tree by now. Between La Cienaga, Beverly, La Brea and Wilshire there are lots of avocado trees. What sort of food plants grow in the front yards and open lots of your neighborhood? The plants I have in mind are not being grown in French raised beds, are not harvested by their ostensive owners, often wither and die or drop their overripe fruit without anyone (but me) ever picking any. Fri Mar 22 13:00:09 -0800 2002 0 Samo 1 1559800 Does rural foraging count? I live on a mountaintop 5 miles from the nearest store. We have some gnarly little wild blackberries and loads of wild strawberries, which are teensie. Sometimes you see the blackberries in urban parks around NYC (esp. Queens). BTW, does anyone know if that guy is still growing corn on the median on UWS Broadway? Fri Mar 22 15:26:16 -0800 2002 1559782 0 lucia 1 1559801 Palms, sans coconuts. If only one neighbor in any given neirborhood plants a palm tree, palms are guaranteed to sprout ad hoc, ad inifinitim in lawns in a 25 mile radius. Fri Mar 22 15:34:08 -0800 2002 1559782 0 Chino Wayne 1 1559802 Keep an eye out for areas settled by Italians, like Oakland's Temescal district. Lots of old fig trees and some huge almost tree-like rosemary bushes whith a much sweeter fragrance. Fri Mar 22 15:38:32 -0800 2002 1559782 0 Melanie Wong 1 1559806 I lived in the Berkeley hills for a while, biking to school. My handles would always be purple from the pit stops by the berry bushes... Fri Mar 22 16:25:22 -0800 2002 1559782 0 garçon 2 1559821 I hope you meant "handle bars" and not "love handles"... Fri Mar 22 19:11:19 -0800 2002 1559806 0 Chino Wayne 2 1559822 "I lived in the Berkeley hills for a while. . ." Northside? Southside? I lived on Shasta Road for several years, between Tamalpais and Tamalpais. (Only to a Berkeleyite would that make sense.) Fri Mar 22 19:11:29 -0800 2002 1559806 0 John Whiting 1 1559810 This is a question a bit off the topic but what is a cardoon? (It's mentioned often in Elizabeth David's cook books ). As for urban foraging, in Washington State its definitely the berries. Yum! Thanks for the help! ElizabethC Fri Mar 22 17:03:50 -0800 2002 1559782 0 ElizabethC 2 1559815 A Yahoo search for the word cardoon produced a wide array of useful hits, but the most useful I saw is linked below. This relative of the artichoke is highly praised for its resemblance in flavor to the heart of the artichoke, but I find it very hard to work with. You need to choose carefully, since many cardoons available at the market are nasty; you need to prepare it carefully; and still it might not turn out well. Nonetheless, the likes of Alice W and Jeffrey S love it. Link: http://csf.colorado.edu/sustainability/plants/vegetable_garden/cardoon.html Fri Mar 22 18:25:21 -0800 2002 1559810 0 Samo 3 1559819 " . . .the likes of Alice W and Jeffrey S love it . . ." Also and especially the Two Fat Ladies, who rolled the name around on their tongues like distant foghorns. Fri Mar 22 19:07:07 -0800 2002 1559815 0 John Whiting 4 1559835 That's very poetic - I can hear them now....One thing about cardoons: They sprout easily and will grow up to 12 feet tall topped with thistles like tough baby artichokes with lovely purple stamens. Very decorative in dried arrangements but if you leave them in the garden they will self sow and then you will have something to forage the next time around. If you are serious about eating them, you are supposed to blanch the stems by hilling up dirt similar to cultivating celery and then you eat the stalks before they shoot up their flowers.... Fri Mar 22 20:30:18 -0800 2002 1559819 0 Suzanna Pilaf 1 1559812 Hey, Samo. As a fellow Angeleno you may be interested to know that my mother recently took an LACC extension class called "Wild Foods of Winter." I enrolled her in the class as a gift because I thought it would appeal to her survivalist tendencies but it turns out her teacher was more interested in gourmet eating than in apocalyptic preparations. In any event, they scoured the Santa Monica Mountains for all kinds of delicious wild-growing goodies including chick weed, several kinds of mustard, and two bay trees -- one a Calif Bay Laurel, which my mother describes as very pungent, and the other a European Bay Laurel, which is apparently the kind most of us are familiar with. If you want to seek them out, the bay trees are in Griffith Park. Follow the road to the Carousel, says my mother. The bay trees are located at the closest corner of the first parking lot you pass... Fri Mar 22 17:25:32 -0800 2002 1559782 0 Rafi 2 1559820 I'll bet if we asked one of our brothers or sisters down in Camp Pendelton, they could point us to an expert on foraging in the bush. Fri Mar 22 19:08:59 -0800 2002 1559812 0 Chino Wayne 1 1559826 The trails I run through in South Jersey are filled with wild blue berries and cranberry bogs. We also have great fiddlehead ferns, which I'll pick wild to make a salad. Fri Mar 22 19:28:08 -0800 2002 1559782 0 Shoeman 1 1559830 There's a guy named Chris Nyerges who used to lead wild food foraging workshops in L.A. (may still be doing it). The Santa Monica mountains have abundant edible wild foods. What you seem to be talking about are more neglected urban edible plants. When I was growing up near 3rd and Fairfax, there were lots of carob trees that were planted along the curbs. We used to gather and nibble on the pods and do mischievous things with the large seeds. Another fruit tree that is fairly common in So CA and usually ignored is the loquat. Sometimes they are sweet and yummy, but often are fairly flavorless. Where I live now, in Wash. DC we have a berry called the Japanese wineberry, which grows wild along roadside cutover areas. It's very seedy and tart when used fresh, but makes beautiful crimson-colored preserves. Fri Mar 22 19:56:01 -0800 2002 1559782 0 zora 2 1559841 Zora, Speaking of 'neglected urban edible plants,' there's an enormous and totally neglected -- except by the squirrels -- carob tree in my backyard. Any ideas for the beans, mischievous or otherwise? I have an aversion to carob that comes from having been forced to eat it as a chocolate replacement when I was a child in the 70s. (Ugh!) However, I'm open to suggestions as I always seem to have a bumper crop. Fri Mar 22 23:59:47 -0800 2002 1559830 0 Rafi 3 1559921 You could use it to feed the squirrels. Sun Mar 24 09:04:49 -0800 2002 1559841 0 ironmom 3 1559974 If you have so much carob, try this! It's Greek/Cypriot recipe for carob molasses - it's called haroupomelo (teratsomelo in Cyprus, I think)and it means carob honey. You can eat it with bread or drink it diluted with water or milk. Be careful though, as it's also used as laxative. Haroupomelo 2kg carob chopped (broken) into small pieces 3lt. warm water Soak carob in water for 24 hours to extract the "honey" and strain. Discard the carob. Pour this liquid into a thick-bottomed pan and bring to a boil. Simmer until reduced (it will take long), stirring occationally and be careful not to let it burn. It's ready when it's as thick as honey. Let cool and keep in jars. You can reduce this further to make candy. The below is a recipe using haroupomelo. Carob cakes with walnuts 500g self-rising flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/4 cup light olive oil 200g haroupomelo (above recipe) 1 1/2 tbsp honey (thyme honey or other) 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg 1/2 cup fresh orange juice 1/2 cup chopped walnuts sesame seeds Preheat oven to 180c/350f. Grease the muffin pan. Sift together the flour and baking powder. In a bowl, whisk together the oil, haroupomelo, and honey for 2-3 minutes. Add the spices and orange juice and whisk well. Add flour and mix briefly. Stir in the walnuts and mix just until combined. Spoon this mixture into muffin pan and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. I don't know if this recipe works - you may have to adjust a little. Oven temperature looks like a bit high if it's to be baked for so long. Maybe you can reduce the temperature a little and check maybe after about 20 minutes to see how it's doing. Sun Mar 24 22:31:21 -0800 2002 1559841 0 Naoko 4 1560012 Thanks! Intriguing recipe -- I'll definitely give it a try. Do you happen to know when the carob pods are ripe? What color they should be, etc... The squirrels get to them very fast... Mon Mar 25 13:10:19 -0800 2002 1559974 0 Rafi 5 1560074 Hi Rafi. To check if carob pods are ready to harvest, I suggest you join the squirrels and taste one. Pods should be brown in color. In Cyprus, they start harvesting in late August. I think the mature pods start to drop off the tree. Just take one & snap in half: if sweet syrup start to trickle out, it's mature. I think you can beat the branches with stick to gather the pods. In Greece carob is not used much, but I saw some dried pods at the shops in the center of Athens. Maybe they make infusion; I read that infusion (carob pods boiled with dried figs & raisins) is used as cough remedy. In Crete, people used to make bread with carob flour (ground dried pods) during the hard times. Haroupopsomo (carob bread) 1kg carob flour 500g flour (use high-gluten) about 12oz sourdough starter salt to taste (start with 1 tsp & add more to taste) The recipe was quite unclear & the amount of sourdough is my guess. Mix the ingredients in a bowl & add enough water to form a dough. Follow ordinary bread recipe. You can use yeast instead of sourdough & maybe it's better to use more flour & less carob. Carob caramel 1 cup milk 1/2 stick butter 280g haroupomelo (carob syrup) 1 tbsp lemon juice Put all the ingredients in a pan & simmer for about 30 minutes or until thickened (it should reach 245F, I think). Pour into buttered baking sheet & let cool. Cut into pieces. This is good for sore throat & coughs. You can also make ice cream with haroupomelo. Tue Mar 26 01:48:51 -0800 2002 1560012 0 naoko 1 1559836 In New York, there's a guy called "Wildman Brill" - he appears occasionally on public TV and also leads walking tours through city parks where he teaches you about various wild-growing edibles. HOWEVER, my mother was doing this many, many years ago - to the embarrassment of me and my siblings! She'd pick wild dandelion greens from the city parks (especially Highland Park in Queens) to make salad with warm bacon dressing - a favorite of my father's. Also, speaking of Highland Park - there used to be a reservoir there (now it's a dried up hole in the ground). I remember walking around the reservoir with my mom and picking some sort of berries off the trees and eating them. Also, we had wild mushrooms growing in our backyard in Ridgewood, Queens. She would pick them, fry them in butter and make me the most delicious sandwiches! (I have to assume she just knew they weren't poisonous mushrooms - I'd hate to think she was trying to get rid of me!!!!) THERE! How much more urban can you get with your foraging than that??? Fri Mar 22 21:05:35 -0800 2002 1559782 0 Ann McL 2 1559909 We gathered clams in Marina del Rey, where the Venice Canals open out to the Pacific. Ate fairy ring mushrooms from our lawn, chanterelles from Malibu canyon. Caught and grilled bonito from the breakwater in King Harbor, Hermosa Beach. Cooked amaranth, young dandelion and mustard greens gathered in empty lots. Sun Mar 24 00:49:25 -0800 2002 1559836 0 zora 3 1559910 Just remembered making Greek-style olives from the tree in my brother's front yard. They were so delicious! Sun Mar 24 00:55:15 -0800 2002 1559909 0 zora 4 1560007 I implore you to contact me at e-mail address above if you will be doing some vegetable foraging over the next six months and would be willing to educate me. The thought of the chanterelles is particularly enchanting. Mon Mar 25 12:25:31 -0800 2002 1559910 0 Samo 5 1560008 Of course, since you now live very far from Malibu, the likelihood that you can show me the way to the chanterelles is slight. Mon Mar 25 12:28:42 -0800 2002 1560007 0 Samo 1 1559851 Loquat trees are often planted as decorative, with their owner's thinking of the fruit as some sort of attractive nuisance and leaving them unharvested. I always stop to pick some when I see one of these. My favorite one is on College Ave. in Berkeley, and there's another good one down the street from my father's house in the 'burbs... Sadly, San Francisco itself has very little to offer by way of streetside edibles, at least where I live, though I have found a good source for free rosemary. Sat Mar 23 02:36:51 -0800 2002 1559782 0 Zach Georgopoulos 1 1559922 I picked a giant tree mushroom from a decaying stump in my neighbor's yard once. Does that count? We don't seem to have many edibles growing around here, except by people who intend to harvest them. Sun Mar 24 09:07:33 -0800 2002 1559782 0 ironmom 2 1559928 Only if you ate it!! Sun Mar 24 10:43:53 -0800 2002 1559922 0 Ann McL 3 1559933 Of course I ate it! I didn't like it all that much (really earthy), but some people who tasted it thought it was great. Sun Mar 24 11:59:53 -0800 2002 1559928 0 ironmom 1 1559936 I worked out in the wilderness for about 100 days a year for eight years and foraging was a major hobby as well as a means to enliven my meals. After moving back to the grey canyons of NY I still do a bit here and there. In NYC and the Boroughs, as well as the nearby suburbs, there are tons of stuff available, if you know what you want. Some good spots are the larger parks such as Central and Prospect. I have heard some good things about a park in Queens. Oh, and not just fuits, veggies, and teas are available. The other day I saw wild pheasants by the side of the Grand Central Parkway. Also sometimes just walking down a city street you can find good stuff. I have foraged a few times and found: sheep sorrel, wild strawberries, raspberries, puffball mushrooms, garlic mustard, wineberries, nettles, white and red mulberries, kiwi, peaches, pears, apples, wild onions, red and white clover, wintergreen, peppermint, spearmint, catnip, ginko, black walnuts, hazelnuts, juneberries, labrador tea, sweet fern, yarrow, japanese knotweed, plantain, sassafras, chamomile, prickly pear, pond lily bulbs, cattails, day lilies, goldenrod, jewelweed, violets, rose hips, milkweed, russian tarragon, burdock, lambs quarters, juniper berries, wild grapes, linden blossoms, sweet gale, spicebush, NJ tea, sweet gum, plums, and rock tripe. PS. There are a couple of good books out there about foraging in the city. Make sure you know what you are doing and carry Petersons guide to wild edible plants and their guide to medicinal plants. Beware of people who give foraging tours and classes. I once took a foraging walk with an "expert" who told the class that Poison Hemlock was wild carrot (Queen Anne’s Lace.) Sun Mar 24 12:28:07 -0800 2002 1559782 0 The Rogue 2 1560068 I don't know, but somehow I'd be surprised if you could legally "hrvest" those wild pheasants (or could you with a hunting permit?). The blocks of the neighborhood where I used to live in Manhattan were planted with gingko trees, but I never saw them bear anything. Mon Mar 25 23:16:26 -0800 2002 1559936 0 Caitlin McGrath 3 1560080 There must be male & female gingko tree to bear any fruit. Be careful when you gather fruits (nuts) though, since they can irritate the skin. By the way, I used to eat gingko nuts roasted. Tue Mar 26 07:52:40 -0800 2002 1560068 0 naoko 2 1562954 Do you have any titles? (books on foraging) Just curious. Probably too late on this thread, but just in case you are out there. Wed May 01 20:37:48 -0700 2002 1559936 0 The Chief 3 1562956 Sure, first go get the Petersons Field Guides (They make the best plant, animal, and nature identification guides. Period) The two to start with are Edible Wild Plants and Medicinal Plants. They are the ones to rely on. Any others that seem to disagree with them are definately and invariably incorrect. You can trust your life to these books. Actually these are the only books that are a must. Then there are a myriad of others including books that are more about the experience such as Yuell Gibbons books such as: Stalking the Wild sparagus, Stalking the Blue Eyed Scallop, and Stalking the Healthful Herbs. He is a great author and fun read to boot. Tom Browns guide to Edible and medicinal Plants His book The Tracker is fantastic as well as the other books in his series. He teaches courses at a reasonable cost and they are pretty good. I took a few of them over the years and assisted in teaching a few times as well. A few other titles in my library are pretty old but here they are: Feasting Free on Wild Edibles by Bradford Angier which is a compilation of two of his books and another one by him called Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants Edible Wild Plants by Elias and Dykeman The Wild Edible Trail Guide by ALan Hall Wild Greens and Salads by Christopher Nyerges The Mushroom Hunter's Field guide by Smith and Weber Simon and Schusters Guide to Mushrooms Mushroom picking is something one should do under the tutelage of an experienced forager before attempting on ones own. You can do a search on Amazon and find a ton of other books that may be more up to date. Just get the Petersons guides first and read Gibbons and Browns books for the fun of it. Good Luck and have Fun ! Too bad you are on the left coast otherwise I would offer my services. I am looking for people in the NY City area to join me on my foraging expeditions. Wed May 01 22:36:34 -0700 2002 1562954 0 The Rogue 4 1562957 I agree with you about Euell Gibbons. There was a period of my life in the early 70s when I considered him my "patron saint". The things I foisted on my family! Thanks for the good memories, Rogue. Wed May 01 23:05:56 -0700 2002 1562956 0 Pat Hammond 5 1562958 I remember when I was into foraging big time. Back when I was a crunchy granola type. I had read all of Euell's books, taken some courses on survival with Tom Brown, and had a few dogeared, worn, and well used Petersons guides. I was in college and an RA and president of the wilderness club. On sundays I would put togeher a "wild meal" of stuff I foraged for. Usually I could find enough stuff on the 1500 acre Stony Brook campus to feed about 6 folks with about 1-2 hours foraging. I forgot to take off my belt knife one time as I was doing my rounds of the dorm. Next thing I knew security was trying to arrest me for carrying a weapon on campus. I explained to them about the foraging for a sunday dinner to no avail, luckily the director of the housing was a guest that night for dinner and showed up just in time and got me out of some deep stuff. We had a great meal and fed the security officers as well. I still remember some of the ingredients. Indian cucumber root salad, red clover tempura, spicebush tea, fermented wine berry juice, spiced peaches from a tree that must have grown from someones discarded pit years before, burdock root something or other, and some other stuff... Sometimes I don't believe that I ate that stuff and foisted it off on others... but now I miss it. Now that it's been a few years since my wilderness expedition and mountain climbing days I look forward to foraging. I haven't been able to locate more than a handful of ramps yet this year but hope to harvest some this weekend up in harriman park as well as cattail shoots and fiddleheads. Thu May 02 01:19:45 -0700 2002 1562957 0 the rogue 6 1562961 Bravo! I admire your self-reliance and keen eye. I did a bit myself, and remember stopping by the highway to pull up cat tails--the roots are just like water chestnuts. I still jump on wild strawbs, and raspberries whenever I'm near them. Never had enough ingredients to feed six, however. I tip my hat. Thu May 02 19:20:30 -0700 2002 1562958 0 berkleybabe 4 1563007 (This message is for the Rogue; apologies to everyone else for posting it publicly but I don't have his email address) Rogue-- Very belated, are you still looking for foraging company in the NYC area? I'd be very interested in joining you. I learned a small bit about wild edibles out west, but would love to learn what's good to eat around here. Please email me if you're interested. Mon Nov 24 14:13:07 -0800 2003 1562956 0 Ruby