Foraging

Winter Foraging in Cold Climates: 50+ Wild Foods in the Snow

November 13, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Foraging is a year-round source of food and fun, no matter where you live. Our ancestors didn’t have the luxury of taking the winter off from food gathering, they just had to get more creative. There are hundreds of wild foods you can forage in winter, even in cold climates.

Here in Vermont, our frost-free growing season is only about 100 days long. Gardeners know how to plant frost hardy vegetables to extend the season and die-hard foragers don’t take any months off. So what can you forage in when temperatures are 30 below outside? It turns out…more than you’d think.

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How to Make Black Walnut Tincture (and Powder)

November 9, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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A black walnut tincture is easy to make at home, and all it takes is a fresh supply of ripe black walnuts. The walnuts themselves will still be perfectly good to eat since a black walnut tincture is made using the green outer husk rather than the nut itself. The resulting tincture is used to purge parasites and as a topical anti-bacterial. It also has the added benefit of being an emergency iodine supplement.

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16 Medicinal Trees for Your Herbal Medicine Chest

November 9, 2018 by Ashley Adamant 5 Comments

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When we think of medicinal herbs, most people’s minds go right to small weeds and flowers growing at the edge of your lawn or on a roadside. We don’t usually think of trees as a source of medicine, but medicinal trees are all around us, hiding in plain sight. Historically, much of the country was forested and the people had to find medicinal uses for the forest trees to stay healthy.

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Homemade Hawthorn Jelly

October 26, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Hawthorns are one of the last fruits hanging on trees late into the fall. They mature just barely in time for the first frosts up here in Vermont, and hawthorn berries are one of the last summer fruits to can up before winter snows. Though ‘haws’ grow on trees like apples, they’re actually much more closely related to roses. A homemade hawthorn jelly tastes similar to rose hip jelly, but it has the added benefit of being potent medicine for heart health.

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Dandelion & Burdock Herbal Bitters

October 23, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Fancy bitters are part of any well-stocked bar, and artisanal herbal bitters made with wildcrafted ingredients are starting to replace mass-produced commercial bitters in the most upscale establishments. But who needs to spend $10 to $15 on a cocktail that you can make yourself for pennies? Add in the fact that herbal bitters are a traditional way to get reluctant patients to take their medicine, and you’ve got a recipe for homemade herbal goodness that’s fit for even the most reluctant patient.

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Foraging Puffball Mushrooms

October 20, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Years of mushroom foraging under my belt and I’ve still never seen a giant puffball mushroom. I keep hearing they’re everywhere, and I know that they’re one of the “foolproof four” easiest to identify mushrooms along with chicken of the woods, shaggy mane and morels. Easy to identify and even easier to spot can only get you so far, if there just aren’t any nearby.

While giant puffball mushrooms may be the most famous, there are dozens of edible species of puffball mushrooms and they’re all just as easy to identify.

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Foraging Witches Butter Mushroom

October 11, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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There aren’t that many mushrooms you can forage year round, but orange witches butter will pop out of softwood logs any day of the year. That includes -20 days right in the middle of our zone 4 Vermont winter. While it may not taste like much, it is edible, and it’s a year-round survival food. Witches butter mushrooms are also medicinal, and they’ve been shown to have anti-tumor properties, as well as potential to treat certain respiratory conditions.

large witches butter mushroom on cut hemlock log ((Dacrymyces palmatus)

A large orange jelly fungus (Dacrymyces palmatus) growing out of the cut end of a downed hemlock log.

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Foraging Wild Quinoa (Goosefoot Seed)

October 6, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Every grain we have today has a wild ancestor, but some are more domesticated than others. Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) is relatively new to domestication, and its wild cousin (Chenopodium album) is not that different than the modern cultivated grain. The seeds may be a bit smaller, but the plants look almost identical when they sprout in the spring.

What you may not know, however, is that wild quinoa likely grows in your backyard. Also known as goosefoot, it’s almost as common as dandelions, and it’s viewed as a weed by gardeners around the world. Most foragers harvest its leaves as a tasty salad green in the spring, but if you allow the plants to mature, they’ll produce a wild grain crop in the fall.

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Foraging Beech Nuts

September 28, 2018 by Ashley Adamant 6 Comments

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Walking in the woods a few years ago I came across a tiny, brightly colored spiky pod mixed in with the leaves. I bent down to investigate and found that the forest floor was covered with them, all around a particular tree with grey smooth bark.

A little research, and I learned that I’d found beechnuts. Historically, they were a popular food source in both Europe and America, but these days hardly anyone’s ever heard of them. That’s largely because they’re difficult to harvest mechanically, and they are not nearly as large as the nuts that grace our modern tables.

Beechnuts harvested in October in Vermont.

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Chicken of the Woods Mushroom Recipes

September 28, 2018 by Ashley Adamant Leave a Comment

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Chicken of the Woods mushrooms are incredibly common in the woods, and they’re commonly found at farmers markets and specialty stores. Wild mushrooms are only just beginning to become a part of American culinary traditions, and it can be tricky to find chicken of the woods recipes.

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Foraging

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