Taming Wild Foods

If you’re a foodie, like me, you may have been following the latest trend in acquiring the very best food.  Wild food gathering or foraging is becoming quite chic.  One of the leaders of this movement is my friend, Kevin Feinstein, who recently co-authored The Bay Area Forager with Mia Andler as a guide to the edible plants of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Kevin Feinstein is considered to be one of the leading authorities on wild food and has provided food for the underground market, ForageSF,  and  he has been featured in several main stream media outlets including The Wall Street Journal. ForageCoCo, is Contra Costa’s equivalent. Gathering wild edibles is an extremely enjoyable outing, but is guaranteed to bring you the freshest, most nutritious foods. Hyperlocal food is as important as hyperlocal news.

While it’s an exciting trend, getting people reacquainted with the natural world, it’s something I’ve been doing since I was a child growing up at the foot of Mount Diablo.  Instead of writing about the regional and national movement, I will focus on my personal experience and advice. Gathering free wild food allows me to save enough money to buy the , the and most delicious organic chocolates (article to follow).

An obvious caution must be stated here; you can’t just wander out in the woods and pick stuff if you don’t know for a fact what it is, it could kill you.  There are plenty of poisonous plants around that pack a lethal punch. Looking out my window I can see one of the most toxic plants known to man growing wild down the hillside. Hemlock is still as deadly as it was in Socrates’ time.  When it’s young it resembles a carrot (they’re in the same family) and many a pioneer made a fatal stew thinking that this wild carrot was edible.  Your nose can tell you that it’s not a carrot however, because it has a pungent, acrid stench. Further attention grabbing warnings are the ominous blood red splotches along the stem.

The devil is in the details.

If you’re planning to learn the art of foraging, definitely get some books, find a guide, and take a class.  You need to train yourself to see the fine differences between plants and funguses. You need to be able to know for certain that what you’ve picked can be eaten safely.  I learned from my mom, the other docents at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in the 70s including Gary Bogue, and reading lots of information about local plants.  Kevin’s book would be an ideal starting point for most people who have never foraged before.

My favorite thing to forage is a green that kept the 49ers alive and healthy -- not the football team, but the pioneers; Miner’s Lettuce. It’s a succulent green that has easily identifiable leaves (they’re round with a small cream colored flower in the center) and has a delightful crunch. The leaves make a first rate salad.  This juicy plant grows in shady areas, usually near water and can be found in the cooler months of the year after it has rained a bit.

Around November my mouth starts watering as I contemplate the dishes I’ll make with our local gold: chanterelle mushrooms.  Sold in local stores and available at the finest restaurants, golden chanterelles grow in our shaded, live oak forests only after we’ve received four inches of rain.  This tender delicacy grows November to March. Sorry, I’m not going to give you specific spots where I’ve found them. That’s one secret I plan to keep.  But if you own a north sloped property with live oaks or know someone who does, go out and look under the duff to see if any orange/yellow mushrooms that have no gills, have emerged. Chanterelles have false gills and no defined cap.

Mushrooms need extra caution. Two mushrooms grow in our hills that are documented as the most toxic things on earth, the Death Cap and the Destroying Angel. These are both white or cream colored with gills and look nothing at all like a chantrelle.  They can both melt your liver in less than 24 hours. To survive you must get a liver transplant. Every year someone who recently migrated here from Southeast Asia dies because these mushrooms look identical to safe mushrooms that grow in their homeland.

In order to safely eat wild mushrooms, you must be able to identify the mushroom down to the smallest detail. If you are not 100% certain then do not risk eating it. One way to learn about wild edible mushrooms besides reading books, taking a class or getting a guide, is to buy wild grown mushrooms at Diablo Foods, and compare them to the pictures and identification keys in the books.  The best books for local mushrooms are two written by David Arora, “All That the Rain Promises and More” (a field guide), and “Mushrooms Demystified” (a huge tome filled with all of the known information about local mushrooms).

Bay Nuts, which are the seed pods of the local Bay Laurel trees, are another enjoyable edible.  The bay tree is a relative of the avocado tree, and the nuts are a miniature version of the avocado.  The fruit when perfectly ripe (looks like a Haas avocado when ripe with dark purple/black coloring) tastes buttery and very much like an avocado.  The pit though is the attraction of this fruit. It can be roasted to the color of coffee beans in your oven and then eaten like peanuts or ground and drank like coffee. It contains caffeine like coffee, so be careful not to eat too many. It would be a bit like eating too many chocolate covered espresso beans.

Is foraging worth the effort? Considering all the work that it takes to grow a garden, not to mention the expense, wild food seems like a walk in the park--oh yeah, that’s what it is!  Also consider how many hours of work it takes you to earn enough money to buy food at grocery stores, a walk through the woods on a nice day to harvest Mother Nature’s bounty seems like a joy.  Go with a friend and make it an adventure.