books | Wild Food Girl

Samuel Thayer’s new book ‘Incredible Wild Edibles’

December 16, 2017 By Erica M. Davis 1 Comment

If you are an avid fan of wild food foraging, then you know the author Samuel Thayer already. His books, Nature’s Garden (2010) and Forager’s Harvest (2006), set a new standard for foraging literature, with longer and more in-depth plant accounts than the majority of edible wild … [Read more...]

Hank Shaw’s Latest: A Cookbook for Deer, Elk, Antelope, Moose & More

November 2, 2015 By Erica M. Davis Leave a Comment

Order 'Buck, Buck, Moose' by Monday, Nov. 9 to reserve a copy. Heads up hunters, game lovers, and cooks: Wild foods author Hank Shaw is producing a cookbook for all creatures antlered--including deer, elk, antelope, moose, and more. The book promises to take readers from nose to … [Read more...]

Katrina Blair’s Wild Wisdom of Weeds

June 8, 2015 By Erica M. Davis 2 Comments

Perhaps the hot springs had something to do with it, but when I sat down to review Katrina Blair’s book, The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2014), I found myself enjoying a sort of inner peace. The book features chapters … [Read more...]

A Patterns Method for Wild Food: Thomas Elpel’s Foraging the Mountain West

May 3, 2015 By Erica M. Davis 1 Comment

You may know Thomas Elpel best for his book, Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification. Unlike traditional plant identification guides that provide descriptions and photos of individual species, his well-loved softcover tutorial, now in its sixth printing (Hops … [Read more...]

Dina Falconi’s Foraging & Feasting

September 4, 2014 By Erica M. Davis Leave a Comment

My mother-in-law-to-be walked into our apartment and bee-lined it straight for Dina Falconi’s book, Foraging & Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook (2013), which I had out on the coffee table. The cover is a hand-drawn festival of colorful wild plants, from bulbs to … [Read more...]

2 days ago

I took myself on a solo road trip to Nevada last week, and I’m so happy I did! I have been studying pinyon pines, primarily our local two-needle pinyon (Pinus edulis), but I wanted to check out the singleleaf pinyons (P. monophylla) of the Great Basin too. They are having a mast year there, so the trees and ground were covered with pinyon nuts of many colors, shapes, and sizes. Even better, when I pulled into the campground I met a nice Navajo couple up from Arizona to do the same, so we camped and harvested pinyons together for a couple days.

It is a Navajo belief that if you shake the trees, early winter will come—so we just gathered from the ground, talking and telling stories to pass the time. I am embarrassed to say it took some work to keep up with my new 65 and 70-year-old friends, who could go for 6 hours straight. But I learned so much—how they winnowed out the blanks, and roasted and salted pinyon nuts to perfection, not to mention other things like how various other plants are used for medicine, food, and utility, and how to make ash bread and fry bread and nixtamalize corn with juniper ash.

I am counting my blessings for such a wonderful and unexpected experience with new friends—and of course, all the pinyones I’m stuffing my face with right now. ... See MoreSee Less

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1 week ago

Here is a neat plant I found for the first time on my cross-country trip last week—purple poppy mallow (Callirhoe involucrata). I first read about this plant in Kelly Kindscher’s book, Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie. Then Sam Thayer chose it to grace the cover of his latest book, Incredible Wild Edibles (2017), and of course included a very useful account.

This relative of common mallow (Malva neglecta) is also low-growing with leaves that are similarly structured, but more deeply lobed. It is also known as “prairie winecups” for its pretty flowers, which I was glad to find too.The green parts and flowers are edible, as is the taproot. Sadly, I didn’t find a place to dig any purple poppy mallow on my trip. The first place I found it had only a couple specimens, and this native perennial should only be dug where there is a healthy population, preferable one that needs thinning, Sam writes. The second spot had a decent-sized population in the mowed grass along an Arby’s parking lot, but I didn’t think Arby’s would love it if I dug up their lawn. So, next time!

Sam shows eastern Colorado as the starting point (headed east) for this Great Plains species, but I didn’t find any in Colorado. The two populations I found were in central Nebraska. These are often cultivated as landscaping plants too. ... See MoreSee Less

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2 weeks ago

Hello fellow pine nut hunters! I’m curious to hear how your season has been going. Here where I gather in Colorado, in spring it was looking to be a great year, as our local Colorado or New Mexico pinyon (Pinus edulis) were well-crusted in fat, green cones. Then, seemingly owing to the lack of rain in late summer, a lot them “browned out,” the cones turning brown, shrinking, and in some cases dropping prematurely.

Still, a good grove remains where I’ve been collecting green cones over the last month—a harvest method used by tribes to the west in singleleaf pinyon (P. monophylla) country. These I laid to dry in flat boxes, and they have been opening up in the last couple weeks, to release seeds both viable and empty, as to be expected.

Yesterday, after a weeklong trip I returned to the pinyon-juniper to find that the cones on the trees were opening—but all were empty of viable nuts, and I couldn’t find any good ones on the ground either. To me this says, due to the lean year surrounding my particular grove: 1) the woodland animals are getting them as soon as they open if not before, and 2) it may not be a good year for tree-shaking or collecting from the ground (in that location). I walked a ways through the woodland and couldn’t find one candidate I wanted to lay my tarp under.

So I’m curious: Does this sound like your pinyon grove too? What are your observations? Thanks! ... See MoreSee Less

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