When it comes to procuring food and preparing it to the best of one’s ability, three resources are required: time, money and knowledge. In the last couple posts I discussed the role of convenience in our modern American appetite. On the spectrum of food preparation, convenient foods are at one end and at the other lies foraged foods. The “hunter/gather” mentality is rarely practicted among populations in industrialized societies. And yet there is a romanticization of this “primitive” means of gathering sustenance. Like many people who want to be connected to their food, foraging seems like an obvious next step.
To be honest, my partner got me started on the whole idea of foraging. My partner is a hobby mycologist which is a fancy way of saying she likes fungi (mushrooms.) Mycology is the study of fungi; and though she is no professional, when we go camping I promise you she has a copy of the North American mushroom encyclopedia!
It began with morels or morchella which pop up in early spring. Once the weather warms up and the soil temperatures hit a warmer number, these beautiful mushrooms start standing among the trees and underneath the fallen leaves. They are mysterious and loved by many fungi connoisseurs. For the last several years we have searched and we have found. Lucky we are to find them.
A black morel.
Now that we are back in the NW which is basically ‘mushroom country,’ we hope to hunt more and more. This autumn we attempted to find chanterelles and had no luck. Though we did find a chicken of the woods. As a matter of fact we may return to the woods this weekend to search once more. Chanterelles need that heavy rain in the beginning of the season to grow. Now that so much rain has fallen, I’m hoping we will have a better chance.
Cantharellus cibarius
Between the two of us, I like the chanterelles and my partner likes the morels. Lucky for her we have only successfully foraged the latter. Last year while living in Minneapolis, we ventured to the SE corner of the state to find the Minnesota state mushroom – Morchella. I love that states have a ‘state mushroom;’ how quirky is that?!
Well last spring our mushroom hunting included a new wild desire: ramps (wild leeks). Having not hunted them before, we were a little lost at first; but upon realizing what they looked like in the ground, we were besides ourselves to realize that they were everywhere! We foraged around 200 of the tasty little plants. I have never had a plant so simply cooked and so unbelievably flavorful. If you get your hands on some next spring, toss them in olive oil and throw on the grill for 5 seconds. The greens will sizzle and the white head will caramelize if you leave it on the grill for a couple more minutes. These are really, really good.
The best part was sharing the harvest with friends and neighbors.
During that same trip we were also very fortunate to find ourselves some morels. Though I must add that this was significantly more challenging. Once foraged, we dry them out and store them in a plastic bag. These tasty morsels are then used sparingly until next spring.
Once dried the morel shrinks by more than half and stores easily in a bag.
Morels are fun to cook with because when they are rehydrated with hot water, a rich and woodsy broth is created with the liquid. In the past I have made fettucini with a cream sauce and morels. With last year’s harvest we made a omellete with the ramps and mushrooms and a little bit of parmesan. But the real winner was a short ribs dish with polenta and ribs encrusted with morels. Wow. That dish is equivalent to the recent lamb shank extravaganza I made last week.
Even as we have had some successful jaunts in the woods with good food to share, there is still SO MUCH more wild food to discover.
There are numerous sites devoted to forgaging wild plants and my knowledge of them is tiny. But if you are a book reader and still have a membership to the library, try and get your hands on any book by Euell Gibbons. Gibbons was introduced to me by a friend of mine in Minneapolis (the same friend pushed us to forage ramps.) I believe his most famous work is Hunting the Wild Asparagus. Many of his books are focused on wild foods. Considering he grew up during the dust bowl era and spent most of his life sustaining himself on foraged foods, he is the king of foraging (in my opinion.) His books are not only incredibly informative but his writing style is very enjoyable. Part-essayist and part-memoir, he writes about each plant with acute knowledge and a clear passion for this way of life. Nowadays he would be considered an extremist, but I think given his historical context, he had to learn to feed himself when food was scarce.
Today, in my world, food is not scarce. I can go to any grocery store or coop or farmers market and see wild amounts of grown food. But in this desire to connect with the farmer, or maybe connect with the growing process itself, I am totally fascinated by the original connection to the natural environment. There is certainly a degree of romanticism, but I genuinely want to learn how to forage my own food. I want to be able to go for a walk in the woods and not bring a snack because I see snacks all around me. This goal is a long ways a way but its got to start somewhere. Maybe next spring I’ll fulfill my current forage fantasy: foraged ramps and morels with stream-caught trout! How fantastic would that be. Until then, I better learn how to fish.
Related posts:
- The Dark Side of the Organic Food Movement
- Success!
- Children of the Asphalt
- Filling up the freezer
- Urban Foraging
Tags: cooking, foraging, seasonal eating, wild mushrooms