A few foods

[pasithea]

So.. I now have three half-pint jars of elderberry jam cooling in my fridge. Hopefully it will set correctly. Elderberries seem to be low in pectin. But if not... Lesson learned, I guess. I'll add more pectin next time and in the meanwhile, elderberry syrup. Mmmm.

I did a lot of snacking while I was picking elderberries, of course. I was in one of my weird browsing modes. Decided just for fun to take a few photos. So.. Here's what the local variety of elderberries look like.








It's a few more weeks until blackberry season yet. You can see they're almost ripe. Mmm. Blackberries. If you ever look close at the skin of my arms and legs under bright light, you'll see that my 'skin' is little more than a network of fine scars, the mass majority of which are from blackberry brambles. I've loved them all my life and when I was out in the woods alone as a child, they were one of my major staples.



These are much too green to eat, and they aren't really 'wild' either, but come this autumn, these pods will be dark brown and filled with sticky sweet. This is carob. It's planted all over the place around here as a decorative tree. In the fall, just break up the pods and toast them in the oven and you get piles of carob. The seeds are also edible as a gluten-free flour if ground up... Not to mention they're kind of pretty and make good beads. :)


No flower, but you all know what dandelions look like. The young greens are good to eat. So are the flowers. I used to love taking a pile of dandelion flowers and sauteing them with a little salt and butter. Very tasty.




These aren't as big and fleshy as the dates you buy at the store. They're actually mostly stone, but they're a nice sweet snack. I'm very bad here, I eat ones that have fallen on the ground because they're still good and usually intact and rarely bug-chewed. They're a nice interruption on my way between work and home. :)



Wild dill and fennel grow all over the place around here. Don't know if it's native or not but it's one of my favorite plants to nibble.


These were growing on the side of a foot path that runs beside the highway. I find grapes growing all over the place around here. They're very common though other animals usually beat me to the fruits. :)




Mustard/cabbage/rapeseed
It's hard to tell these apart and it really doesn't matter too much as the leaves, flowers, and seeds of all of them are varying degrees of spiciness and edibility. This family of plants is one that I frequently browse while hiking. Sometimes I have the leaves in salads, but it's much more common to find me nibbling on a flower head or the seeds in one of those pods.


whenever you find large pine cones, you've found a potential snack. a cone like this is best. The really large ones that are fairly long and have recently opened. Turn it upside down and give it a good whack and those little brown/black helicopters will fall out. Crack them open and inside is a pine nut (the stuff you use in making pesto) Sometimes when I come across a good crop of pinecones, I'll knock the seeds out of a few, stick them in my pocket, and crack and eat them like sunflower seeds while I'm walking.




Just a couple of the dozens of varieties of plums you can find growing around here right now. The dark red-leafed one is another decorative plant with edible fruit that often goes to waste, just making a mess on the sidewalk. The other one was growing off the foot path. Looks like a variant of one of the commercial versions. Probably grew from a pit someone spat out years ago. Plums are another plant that I find growing all over the place. Mmm..


Rosebud...... It's not just a sled, you can also eat them. They're kind of like tart mealy apples.


You wouldn't want to eat these thistles. They've already gone to seed, but if you can find them when they're budding and about to bloom, they're almost identical to artichokes. You can't eat them raw, of course, but they're not bad cooked. I've had them several times. Supposedly they're also good for protecting your liver against amatoxins if you eat the wrong mushroom. I wouldn't go out of my way to test that though.


Mmm. Walnuts. They won't be ripe for several more months, but there are lots of walnut trees growing around here. Yet another non-native that you can find just about anywhere in the area.


So... That's about a half hour of walking and taking photos and I skipped many dozens of edibles that were on that walk path just because I forgot to photo them or because I passed them before I decided to start taking photos. Wood sorrel, curly dock, lemons, oranges, loquats, monkey puzzle nuts, strawberry tree, and dozens and dozens of others.

I skipped photos of many medicinal and psychotropic plants because you need a little more caution with some of them.

Anyhow. Hope you enjoyed and.. If you decide to nibble on nature, I'd ask that you follow my very arbitrary rule-set. Don't take more than you need. Scatter some of the seeds from the plant you ate somewhere that they might grow. Don't completely clean-out an area. Leave stuff for other creatures. Don't crush underbrush/break branches/etc to get to stuff. Don't eat threatened species. Etc. Basic common sense. :)

Comments

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

You don't eat, you browse, like an accomplished herbivore n.n


Also, rapeseed? Seriously?

[phyxis.livejournal.com]

"Rapeseed" or more commonly known now as "Canola" if memory serves. :-)

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

If your household eats oranges, save the seeds in the freezer. Then soak them overnight to make pectin water.

[frith]

Or include unripe berries or include some apple in your jam recipe. 8-)

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

This was a fascinating post. Now I'm curious about my own local edible plant life. Thanks so much for sharing.

[rigelkitty.livejournal.com]

Elderberries look like tree-blueberries.

My family used to grow teeny grapes like those in the picture. They're very yummy for such a teeny variety.

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

I skipped photos of many medicinal and psychotropic plants because you need a little more caution with some of them.


I'd be interested in that post as well.

Where was it you found the plums? I only see them on private property around here, but I'm looking in the wrong places, obviously.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

The plums on the green-leaved tree were growing in Steven's Creek. The purple-leaved ones were growing by the sidewalk in front of the Kraigen. The city plants those as decorative trees. No one seems to fuss if I swipe a few, and technically, there's some weird law about if it's over the street or sidewalk you can have it because it's not in private property. Though just the same, I tend to only pick things in front of businesses, not residential places.

I have a very complex set of rules to justify thievery, it seems.

[equusmaximus.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, the joys of living in someplace that's pretty much warm all year 'round. None of that stuff (other than rapeseed) tends to grow up here. The Blackberries might, and Saskatoon Berries make the best pie you've ever had!

Everytime I hear the name "Elderberries" it always reminds me of the line from Monty Python, "Yer mother was a hamster, and yer father smelled of Elderberries!"

A very interesting posting to be sure, thanks for sharing! :)