50139 Wed May 01 15:51:00 -0700 2002 24 2 Los Angeles Area 0 253364 To all who have been discussing foraging, or reading my original thread on foraging, or who might be thinking about foraging when they're all alone and feeling down: Thanks for all of the suggestions for cool spots to go and pick wild things! You might remember that I originally floated the idea of writing an article on foraging. I am indeed writing that article now, for a local publication. I have corresponded directly with this site's "Big Dog" and he has allowed me to use this posting to ask for more, more, more. So: Without getting me nailed by the cops or shot by vigilant property owners, where can I forage around here, and for what? Post here! Please indicate in your posting whether you would mind if I quoted you in the article. I have no intention of angering people who may know the difference between hemlock and anise. Tell me: Who are you? Where do you live? Why do you forage instead of buy? Does it take a specific kind of person to forage? Do foraged, feral foods taste better than the stuff at the grocery store? Have you ever gotten caught on private property? Is it worth the risk? And, of course, where are the best foraging spots? Bless you all in advance. Leslie "Keppie" Gornstein Los Angeles Wed May 01 15:51:00 -0700 2002 0 Keppie 1 253373 Once you do publish the article, please let us all know where we can read it. Somehow I don't think that those Mountain House energy bars I have stashed with the survival kit in the trunk of Herman will carry me very far in any disaster. -Former Boy Scout Wed May 01 17:50:04 -0700 2002 253364 0 Chino Wayne 2 253375 Have you seen the thread I initiated on March twenty-second of this year? Link: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/288757#1559782 Wed May 01 18:00:45 -0700 2002 253373 0 Samo 3 253392 Yeah I saw it, but as LBQT notes, I have plenty of blender powder for The Liquid Diet. Wed May 01 19:09:55 -0700 2002 253375 0 Chino Wayne 2 253383 Yeah, but as long as you have those envelopes of powder and bottles of water to mix it in, that liquid diet stuff will sustain you (she said with a grin). Wed May 01 18:31:33 -0700 2002 253373 0 LBQT 3 253500 But what about a BATTERY OPERATED BLENDER? Fri May 03 12:46:53 -0700 2002 253383 0 russkar 4 253532 You are right, absolutely necessary. If anyone can, I am sure you will run down a source (wholesale) for a battery powered blender. I am surprised that a gas powered one doesn't already come with your super duper BBQ cooker. Fri May 03 18:45:50 -0700 2002 253500 0 Chino Wayne 5 253559 Be ready to kneel down to the Greatest cooking device known to man. BRINKMANN "ALL IN ONE" Propane Smoker. Game Over! I'm stuck with a WEBER for another week, so quit rubbing it in. Sat May 04 02:31:07 -0700 2002 253532 0 russkar 6 253574 Hey cousin, d'yal need us'ns hicks from Chinotucky to show you how to rub two sticks together so's you can start a far in them thar red kettle? I be happy to give yah a lesun if'n ya'l will deamon-strate the super-duper Brinkman furnace y'al keep harp'n about when y'al gets back to the Yoo-nited States... Sat May 04 16:10:22 -0700 2002 253559 0 Chino Wayne 7 253576 Have you finished Astronaut School yet, so you'll be qualified to Pilot this thing? With a 170,000 btu's your going to think the Space Shuttle is taking off, not that were only cooking some Ribs. John Glenn Sat May 04 16:42:42 -0700 2002 253574 0 russkar 8 253578 170,000 B-T-U's? Now what da y'al think we are gonna do with a big ole mess o' Bulls Turned into Unucks out here in Chinotucky? We don' need but a passel a studley bulls, with all ther 'quipment, if'n y'al noe what I mean, to service our heifers. Now if'n yore super duper delux far breath'n cooker can het up some brand'n irons, I might be int'rested. Sat May 04 18:01:43 -0700 2002 253576 0 Chino Wayne 1 253410 Interesting subject... here in so cal where so many things grow so well, and where backyard fruit trees are a reminder of fruit orchards past. I havent been chased out of a yard since I was 12, now a days I would just ask. Most people, who are not themselves eating the lemons, apricots or figs in their yards might appreciate you taking them away. As well as the more common citrus and figs, LA is home to some more exotic fruits: There are Mulberry trees in parts of Mount Washington that are left over from a turn of the last century attempt to manufacture silk worms in LA...the fruit is like a large blackberry and very popular in persian cuisine. Sapote trees ( you can find some at the Palos Verdes Botanical Garden) very sweet and luscious fruit common in Mexico. Passionfruit, very common, huge vines growing in the Arroyo Seco. Use the tangy juice to flavor foods or with sugar and water to make a beverage. Carob tree pods, interesting but labor intensive snack food. Please remember eating any fruit or vegie that has grown close to auto traffic will have residual lead, metals and possibly brake asbestos and should not be consumed!!!! If you are in a natural area, ie Santa Monica mountains, in spring there are a variety of common greens that are tasty, wild mustard, miners lettuce, and wild onions. But the value of a bit of "free" food really doesnt justify degrading a natural ecosystem. Wed May 01 20:40:18 -0700 2002 253364 0 ciaolette 1 253438 Wild black berries. A few years ago I spent a lot of time in Franklyn Canyon park in Beverly Hills it's just off Coldwater Canyon and pretty tricky to find but a really wonderful place for a shaded stroll and you can bring your dog. It's also never mobbed, and usually you don't even see anothe person. Okay so the thick run of black berry bushes runs along the stream just below the pond/lake, parallel to the paved street. You have to leave the street, hop down a steep little hill, and be there the right time of year (which is very soon). My girlfriend and I picked five cups of berries and made a pie. To make it more exciting there are some snakes. Good luck, crb Thu May 02 14:43:36 -0700 2002 253364 0 Colin Brown 2 253449 You sound like a wonderful man that I would like to have at my parties. May I use your name and city in my story? Thu May 02 16:23:08 -0700 2002 253438 0 Leslie Gornstein 3 253457 I'm not sure what you mean, but thanks for the compliment. By all means go ahead and use what ever you want. crb Thu May 02 17:30:54 -0700 2002 253449 0 Colin Brown 1 253475 I don't know too much about foraging around here, but I do know this: If you go up into Topanga, on the bike trails (I wouldn't eat stuff near the road, ick!), you will find more fennel than you can shake a stick at. There are laurel (bay) trees for bay leaves, there is rosemary and basil and most of all lavender, which seems to sprout everywhere and the flowers of which impart an incredible taste to lamb and also to homemade ice cream. The same goes for Griffith Park. There are also huge stands of prickly pear cactus. Now, I don't advise you just wade in and get it - be dressed for it and expect (ugh!) snakes - but ripe prickly pears are great. There are also cactus that yield nopales. Good luck getting the spines out. You can mussel off the coast but I wouldn't dare do it much south of Goleta in Santa Barbara county. There are frogs aplenty all over the place - make sure you get frogs and not toads! (I don't, personally, eat them, as I consider them a vessel for garlic and I can get garlic other ways). There are hares and rabbits in the hills if you have a hunting permit - delicious ragu di coniglio. There are fig trees growing all over the county of Los Angeles - Ocean Park Blvd. in Santa Monica has tons. There are loquat trees along Tujunga Ave. in Studio City and orange, lemon, grapefruit, apricot, avocado, and nectarine trees all along the Sherman Oaks side of Beverly Glen Blvd. Jasmine, of course, grows like a weed anywhere you put it, and it makes delicious tea. So do chrysanthemums, and there is a large stand of them on Kanan Dume Rd between the northern and centre tunnels. Thu May 02 22:56:10 -0700 2002 253364 0 PRSMDave 2 253476 Dave, Maybe I'll finally get an answer to a question I've had for over thirty years. In 1969 I spent six weeks of the summer at UCIrvine. We stayed in dorms and ate in the dining halls. I had two small children and my older one amused himself by capturing very large snails and bringing them into the room. They crawled around, leaving their silvery trails, and we all were enchanted, UNTIL we found they were literally eating up the pages of our books. My question, of course, is did I pass up a great chance at all the snails in garlic butter that I could want --and for free? It seems to me now that such large snails would be real pests in the garden. But can you eat them?? Pat Thu May 02 23:28:02 -0700 2002 253475 0 Pat Hammond 3 256071 Wow, this is a reply to an old message... with any luck you use HotPosts and will catch it... I've been on honeymoon for the last month or so. I suppose you could eat the snails. I will be honest and say that while I will eat snails in a restaurant, and I figure they don't exactly get them shipped from Fauchon, I wouldn't ever eat one of those things I see climbing the stone walls round here... Some things taste a lot better when foraged - herbs in particular - but I figure snails probably taste the same anyway. One other thing I found was that capers - yes, capers - grow in so many people's walls around here, especially up in the hills. Wait till the buds come and then snip snip snip, you have capers! I've also discovered a bunch of olive trees north of my office in Montrose but I have to admit that I'm not sanguine about my chances of success in curing my own olives. Tue Jun 11 12:37:59 -0700 2002 253476 0 PRSMDave 4 256073 Speaking of honeymoons, did you do a report? If so, when? If not, when? I need some vicarious food thrills. Tue Jun 11 13:06:52 -0700 2002 256071 0 mc michael 4 256078 Whoa...CAPERS ??!! where should I look for these? I would love to grow these myself but I have never seen the plants for sale. I know they are from similar climate, but I always though they neededsome type of special soil, volcanic or Whatever. Thanks!!! plus for your info PRSMDave, since you might have missed it, Leslie, who started this thread, wrote a lovely little article for the LA times on the subject, it was in the Thursday Calendar 3 weeks ago, and she included a link to Chowhound. Tue Jun 11 14:15:18 -0700 2002 256071 0 ciaolette 5 256107 Capers grow in walls and rocks in the hills, but I've never seen then north of the town of Topanga... they need to be somewhat near the ocean to grow well, in the same range as fennel. If you're going to pick capers, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be careful. There are other plants that look like caper plants which have poisonous fruit. It's better to order a plant from the source listed on the linked webpage (it's just in Chula Vista), plant it in your wall, and get to know it before foraging. Also, capers should be picked when they're less than 16mm (a little more than half an inch) in diameter. You eat the buds of the plants. You must pickle them, either under salt, or in brine, before they taste like capers. Link: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/cropfactsheets/caper.html Image: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/cropfactsheets/fs_pics/caper_plant.gif Tue Jun 11 18:58:54 -0700 2002 256078 0 PRSMDave 4 256081 Thanks, Dave. I'd resigned myself that the snails had eaten up that post of mine! About your local snails, I wonder who could know if they are edible. I think if you captured a bunch and let them "purge" themselves, so to speak, then fed them with delicious things like herbs, (and wild capers!!) they might be wonderful. The ones I recall were formidable creatures. Really big. But maybe the species is poisonous. I just don't know. But, oh, how I've fantasized about my missed opportunity. pat Tue Jun 11 14:36:53 -0700 2002 256071 0 Pat Hammond 3 256121 Pat, basically all snails are edible (and by the way so are slugs wich are just snails who had their shells carjacked a few generations ago...) they are molluscs which have very few types which are not edible. So you did miss out on some nice fresh escargot... Tue Jun 11 22:20:53 -0700 2002 253476 0 the rogue 4 256134 Just remember, *do not* preseason them with salt in their live state, (not to mention they probably wouldn't be very popular choices as "live" food for the sushi menu) :-D Wed Jun 12 09:48:39 -0700 2002 256121 0 WLA 2 253478 I no longer believe I am hard core. Thu May 02 23:38:58 -0700 2002 253475 0 Leslie Gornstein