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  • The Great Outdoors

Foraging for Beginners: Tips for Understanding the Wild Edible Landscape

  • June 1, 2017
  • Ben Osborne
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Ass’s foot? Cough wort? British tobacco? In Ontario, this common weed is called coltsfoot—it grows in ditches, looks like dandelion, and infused into ice cream, tastes like fresh melon.

This article is part of the Mountain Life Isolation Reading List

Introducing our Curated COVID-19 Isolation reading list. Editors from each of our publications have gone through and compiled a list of pieces from past issues of Mountain Life for you to enjoy, and we’re excited to share them with you. Sit back and relax, because we might be in this for the long haul. But most importantly, let’s not forget to do this together.
Check out the full list!

 

 

Coltsfoot. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

words :: Melanie Chambers.

A few summers ago, I foraged in Ireland. Our guide took us to the ocean where we plunged our shovels into the sand dunes and hauled out roots that when mashed created a spicy horseradish.

Near the shore, in pockets of puddles, we found sea cactus that tasted like salty pickles. The forest was the same: a hodgepodge of completely new tastes and textures. In Ontario forests, if you know what to look for, coltsfoot is only one of many treats you can find in this adventurous country market.

 

Fiddlehead fern. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

“It’s about understanding your landscape in an edible sense,” says Miriam Streiman, co-owner of Mad Maple Country Inn, a two-bedroom inn on a 100-acre farm near Creemore. On the menu: the Ontario forest.

“Everything we do is showcasing southern Ontario and Toronto and bringing people closer to nature…it’s about asking what season are we in – and what can I make that really honours the integrity of those ingredients?”

 

Chokeberries. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

But as any expert forager will tell you, don’t start picking random roots and mushrooms—unless you’re up for a potential Age-of-Aquarius trip – or worse, a bout of stomach pains from eating raw fiddleheads (note: blanch first to remove toxins) – or much worse, death from a poison mushroom (never eat anything not 100-percent identifiable).

Streiman recalls meeting Jonathan Forbes, owner of Toronto’s Forbes Wild Food, whose company features foraged ingredients from across Canada. “He took us through the woods and showed us what was what.”

 

Wild ginger in bloom. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Eating from the forest demands a certain responsibility, she adds, and a reverence for the ingredients. When you’re harvesting from the woods, it’s not the grocery store—not in taste, texture, or quantity.

Foraging in Ontario starts in the spring tapping maple trees for syrup. Then, just under the last layer of snow, you begin to see the magic happening: a root, or a bit of greenery peeking through. One of the most popular and plentiful is the wild leek. Use the greens for pesto and the bulbs for pickling; however, don’t stock up: found in patches, wild leeks don’t cultivate on their own. That means foragers should harvest only five percent and leave the rest to regenerate.

“Wild leeks have a seven-year cycle from seed to seed, so you can see that by taking out five percent per year, by year seven you have removed 35 percent,” says Forbes. He goes one step further: if you come across a small patch, only remove the leaves – forgo the bulbs.

 

Trout lilies. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

One of Streiman’s favourites is wild ginger for making candies and syrups; she also replaces molasses with wild ginger in her thumbprint cookies – expect a peppery flavour similar to ginger with a bit of heat. And did you know that a wild lily flower added to a stew will thicken the broth? Or that removing the flower’s stamen and adding it to stew has an effect similar to saffron?

 

Wild leeks. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Later in the summer, chokecherries are on the menu. Found along bushes or shorter tight trees, unlike a regular cherry, chokecherries are inedible raw: soak and then dry them before eating. “They make beautiful syrup, jellies and even sauces for braising meat such as venison,” says Streiman.

Foraging encourages us to consider where our food is coming from. Streiman adds: “It gives you a newfound respect how to take care of the land around you and how important it is to preserve that knowledge… because foraging existed since the beginning of time.”

Editor’s note: We recommend foraging only in the company of an expert.

 

You might also like:

FOOD: HOW TO EAT PLANTS — 6 STEPS TO SPRING-CLEAN YOUR DIET
Spring in the mountains. A time of choice (ski gear or bike gear?) and of lessening the load (swapping the long undies for banana hammocks), but what about our food? It gets easier to sustain ourselves with lighter meals once the warmer temperatures kick in, but spring is also the perfect time for a shift in perspective with the way that we eat… Read more

 

 

 

FOOD: RACLETTE: CHEESE OF THE (MOUNTAIN) GODS
Like alpenhorns, yodelling, and enormous cowbells, raclette was a gift to humanity from the fine people of Switzerland. A semi-hard, cow’s milk cheese possessing rich, creamy, aromatic flavours, raclette is most commonly consumed in a magnificently molten state. Traditionally, the cheese was used by Swiss cow-herders who would carry hearty wheels of it on their long journeys through mountain valleys. At night, the cheese would be placed by the radiant warmth of the campfire, where it would eventually achieve a sublime state of sultry softness, before being scraped from the wheel onto a waiting piece of bread or a freshly cooked potato…. Read more

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
In the 10 years I’ve been paddleboarding, one of the most frequently asked questions I hear is, “Hardboard or inflatable: Which is better?” - @only1phoenixx
Morning rip with @jessemunden_ 🫡 #mountainlifer
Who’s having a multi-sport day?! 😆 @timemmett probably is.
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The mere thought of a cougar or any other apex predator in our midst can turn a backcountry adventure into a psychological test of mind over matter. Luckily, our fears are mostly in our heads and few have experienced a negative wildlife encounter. But, for ultramarathoner @samuel.dickie, it got real. #Linkinbio to read more!
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