Well, today was the day.
I spent a lovely 3hrs out walking, chatting and learning.
I think we looked at around 20 different wild foods. Out of those 20 I'd say that half were either new to me or confirmed some things with others in the know that I wasn't too sure about myself.
I tried sheep sorrel and wood sorrel both of which I loved the citrusy zing that they had. Probably my two favourites for flavour, but apparently not so much as far as nutrients go (and high in oxalic acid, so not to be eaten in large quantities).
We tried clover flowers - white and red - hmmm, not so fussed on eating funny flower petals like that lol.
Chickweed, cleavers and fumitory - all weeds I have growing in my garden but hadn't actually tried raw before.
We looked at dandelion and the various look-alikes and discussed the differences. Checked out dock, shepherds purse, plantain, yarrow, puha, lambs quarters, beach spinach.
We compared the wild turnip and the wild swede and noted where the difference lies. The wild swede flowers are set down from the buds and with the wild turnips, the flowers are set above the level of the buds. Other than that, both are edible in small quantities.
We identified a big poisonous hemlock plant - so it was great to have a live example to see for ourselves.
After returning back to the guides house we brewed up some pine needles for a very pleasantly fragranced tea - very high in vitamin C!
So for tonight's dinner Nathan and I decided to gather a few things from around our own garden to add to it. I found some wood sorrel, sheep sorrel, white clover flowers, cleavers and chickweed to chop in.
12 comments:
Sounds like a lovely afternoon - very envious!! I must try pine needle tea. Will any pine tree do? x
Johanna, I'm assuming so. It was just a big regular pine forest tree that we took some fresh needles from. Googling just brings up the pinus family, so sounds all ok.
Ooooh ... just clicked. I wonder if Wild Swede was the one I confused wih Wild Turnip for so long ... could I get you guys to show me it, when I come out sometime?
Yep sure! I think though, that I would only be able to identify based on the flowers now. The plants themselves were looking a bit sad with the heat and dryness. Nothing like the lush green plants we were admiring a few months back that's for sure! He didn't mention the other brassica varieties and he said he'd only just recently been learning about them, so maybe not a really thorough knowledge on all of them just yet.
Wow! Sounds like a great walk! Was it an organised thing? I wonder if anyone does something similar down here in ChCh....
Oh, I'd like to do that here but I keep missing the class. There are a number of edible (and medicinal) plants in the desert; I'd feel more comfortable having confirmation of identity before harvesting, though.
I love that you went right out and harvested for dinner! Did everyone like it?
Cesca, yep, here is the guy who ran it. They have an awesome line up of experiences they offer. www.human.org.nz
Chile, it was neat to have the complete confidence to now harvest. Even though I have been learning about it myself, it was also good to get with someone who can point out these things for sure.
Sounds great, Nikki! Hopefully another one will come up one day when I can make it.
what know watercress???
whoops i meant "no watercress"
Sharon, I will let you know if any others are being run.
Mariella, lol, well we talked about watercress but didn't find any on the walk we were on.
that is so neat.........oh I wish we could sell this house and move out to the country........
Gill in Canada
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