Wild Food Girl

Foraging the wild for plants and stuff to eat.

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Best dandelion soup ever

March 13, 2019 By Erica M. Davis Leave a Comment

Two years ago I was harvesting great quantities of dandelions greens from my back yard—which is located at 10,000 feet in Colorado’s high country—on April 7. Last year, we pushed our harvest back more than a month to May 22, when finally, after a wet rainy spell, the leaves … [Read more...]

Filed Under: April, edible, featured, high altitude, non-native, recipes

Three pennycress mustard recipes

October 4, 2017 By Erica M. Davis 4 Comments

We are just back from the Midwest Wild Harvest Festival in Wisconsin, where I had the honor of presenting for the first time. One of my workshops was on wild mustards— specifically, I invited participants to join me in making three mustard condiments from the seeds of field … [Read more...]

Filed Under: edible, featured, high altitude, mustards, non-native, recipes

Forgotten rhubarb of the old west

June 18, 2016 By Erica M. Davis 2 Comments

I love my Old West town for many reasons, and one of them is rhubarb (Rheum spp.). It is one of the few food plants that can be cultivated here up high where I live, due to our extremely short growing season and cold nights. I’m hardly the first to discover this, for the rhubarb … [Read more...]

Filed Under: edible, featured, high altitude, June, plants Tagged With: feral, foraging, high country, rhubarb

Narrow dock in mushroom sauce

June 16, 2016 By Erica M. Davis Leave a Comment

There are many species of edible dock (Rumex spp.), all of which are related to buckwheat and rhubarb. As a group they generally have dark green leaves that are somewhat thick, and papery sheaths wrapping the base of their leaves and flower stems. Docks produce clustered seed … [Read more...]

Filed Under: edible, featured, high altitude, June Tagged With: Colorado, dock, narrow dock, native, recipe, Rumex, triangulivalvis

Wild Tarragon in the Weeds

September 10, 2015 By Erica M. Davis 3 Comments

I am in love. Wild tarragon. It is the same species as the cultivated herb, but grows wild as a native species throughout much of the U.S. and Canada. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it sooner. According to the USDA range map, wild tarragon is concentrated in the western … [Read more...]

Filed Under: edible, featured, high altitude, June

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Wild Food Girl

2 months ago

Wild Food Girl

Another edible plant I found on my road trip through Utah was red barberry (Berberis haematocarpa syn. Mahonia haematocarpa). It has holly-like, tough leaves with spines on the points—features I am most familiar with in the related, low-growing Oregon grape (Mahonia repens), whose tart, powder-blue berries I enjoy. But this high-desert-loving red barberry is a shrub bearing big, sweet/tart, fruity red berries. It was growing on a dry hilltop amidst pinyon pines (Pinus edulis) and juniper, where it stood out because of all the fruit it bore. I gathered a small sample to study and nibble, but I look forward to collecting enough for a jam or jelly next time I make this lovely plant’s acquaintance! ... See MoreSee Less

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Wild Food Girl

2 months ago

Wild Food Girl

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.
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Wild Food Girl

2 months ago

Wild Food Girl

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.
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Posts

  • The delicious ‘wild wonderberry’
  • Eating nodding thistle stalks
  • Spring is Japanese knotweed season
  • Best dandelion soup ever
  • Samuel Thayer’s new book ‘Incredible Wild Edibles’
  • Three pennycress mustard recipes
  • Forgotten rhubarb of the old west
  • Narrow dock in mushroom sauce
  • Eating chicory greens
  • Elm samaras are edible, gourmet
  • Hank Shaw’s Latest: A Cookbook for Deer, Elk, Antelope, Moose & More
  • Everything You Need to Know about Colorado Acorns
  • Land Caviar from Kochia Seeds
  • Fruity Sipping Vinegars from Repurposed Berry Mash
  • Wild Tarragon in the Weeds
  • Shasta Daisy & Dandelion Greens with Yucca Antipasto
  • A Tale of Four Daisies
  • Katrina Blair’s Wild Wisdom of Weeds
  • You’re My Candytuft
  • A Summer for Wintercress
  • A Patterns Method for Wild Food: Thomas Elpel’s Foraging the Mountain West
  • Fun with Wild Waterleaf
  • Don’t Forget the Tumble Mustard
  • Snowboarding, Nettles, & Jerusalem Artichoke Bouyah
  • Northeast Seaweed Farming & Foraging: A Chat with Charles Yarish
  • Sprouting Flour with Quinoa’s Wild Kin
  • Seaweeding the Eastern Shoreline
  • A Fall for Thick, Rosy Hips
  • Fruiting Forward
  • Dina Falconi’s Foraging & Feasting
  • Dad’s Creamy Wild Mushroom Soup
  • Lambs’ Quarters Pesto with Sunflower Seeds
  • Colorado High Country Blueberries are a Go
  • Eat Your Ornamentals: Backyard Foraging with Ellen Zachos
  • Hawks Wings Mushrooms – Free Download
  • Leaves of Three, Strawberry!
  • Wild Greens & Potato Pie with Kochia
  • Wilted Wild Greens with Lemon & Chive Flower
  • Tumbleweed Salad
  • Orache is a Wild Favorite
  • Wild Edible Picnic
  • Spring Cleaning with Fruit Leather
  • Florida Herbal Conference Starts February 28
  • Low Cost Meal—Beans & Dried Dock
  • Practical Herbs by Henriette Kress
  • Wild Edible Notebook—October release!
  • Stuffballs on the Menu
  • Old Places, New Head Spaces
  • Whistling Suillus
  • Antelope Liver Pâtés

Recipes

Best dandelion soup ever

Three pennycress mustard recipes

Shasta Daisy & Dandelion Greens with Yucca Antipasto

Dad’s Creamy Wild Mushroom Soup

Lambs’ Quarters Pesto with Sunflower Seeds

Archives

Comments

  • Erica M. Davis on Three pennycress mustard recipes
  • Erica M. Davis on Albatrellus Confluens Conference
  • Erica M. Davis on Eating chicory greens
  • tammie on Three pennycress mustard recipes
  • Making the Mushroom Anthotype Part III - Gavin Lyons Photography on Albatrellus Confluens Conference

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