Spring is Coming

I personally love when everything starts to thaw. It is the start of spring, when everything begins to grow again. And for a forager this means a lot. Winter is often a dead time for foraging in Pennsylvania, and I can rarely, if ever forage in the winter. Today has marked an end of that. The first forage of the season happened today.  I was hiking in the woods near my house with a friend, and I found garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), 
(Garlic mustard roots- Photo by Ciaran Rooney-Gatmaitan)
one of the first wild edibles of spring. When it is young it has 5-10 little leaves, slightly resembling wild violets. However wild violets leaves are heart shaped, and have smooth stems. Garlic mustard, later in the season also grows flower stalks that can grow up to 2 feet tall. Pick these when young for a delicious tender, garlicy, and mustardy tasting trail snack. These also can be cooked in olive oil for a side to any meal. 
The specimen that I had stumbled upon were still small with no flower stalks (for those of you wondering try in 2-3 weeks). With these the best way to use is to either use the leaves to make a pesto, (Note to anyone who has interest in doing so- Use basil with it, or else it will be unpalatable). For pesto prepare the same way you would basil pesto, just substitute about 1/5 to 1/3 of the basil for the garlic mustard leaves. Another great way to use the young garlic mustard is to use its roots, which are fairly small. However they have quite a strong taste, and you can use them anywhere you would use horseradish. 
As earlier states, spring is coming so expect more posts more constantly. Hope you enjoyed and happy foraging

Foraging for a feast

       For fathers day, I decided to make my dad a foraged lunch. I had never cooked a formal wild food meal for anyone, although all of my family has had some of my wild food at some point. I was torn about what to make, so I figured I would just see what I found. It just happened that a few days before fathers day we were going to fonthill, a castle made out of cement, and there were 50 acres of forest surrounding it. I figured there would be some wild edibles, and there were. I found tons of spicebush (middle left in the picture), tons of dock (middle middle in the picture), a little bit of stinging nettle (middle right in the picture) and some daylily buds and tubers (tubers not illustrated, buds bottom middle). I also found narrow leafed bittercress, some mulberries that I ate on the spot, and some burdock.
       Fathers day came around faster then expected, and I had to get some stuff around my neighborhood to round out the meal. I got some lambs quarters, some field garlic, and some wild ginger (found that in the wissahickon). to prepare all of this goodness, I made iced spicebush tea, dock chips (like kale chips but with dock, and I coated the dock leaves in soy sauce that was infused with wild ginger and field garlic), and stinging nettle broth that I boiled the daylily tubers in. For the lambs quarters I made creamed lambs quarters, using a recipe for creamed spinach. This was incredibly good, and I had enough for everyone, not only my dad. I also made a narrow leaf bittercress salad. It seemed to have turned out really well. Have fun foraging and good luck to you all!