Edible plants?

[JessiFox]

Are you familiar at all with edible plants and wild mushrooms that are safe to eat? It seems everyone focuses on catching/hunting their own food, but not so much on picking it.

 

[JoshPosh]

There's not much edible plants in my neck of the foods. Most edible vegetation comes from fruits and berries.

Are you familiar at all with edible plants and wild mushrooms that are safe to eat? It seems everyone focuses on catching/hunting their own food, but not so much on picking it.

Check this thread out. These are the vegetation you can eat in Hawaii while on the trail.

 

[campforums]

@JoshPosh, you forgot a link I think?

Picking food does has it's trade offs. On the plus side:

• It isn't going anywhere so it is a lot easier to gather
• A lot less messy since you don't need to skin, gut or cook most plants, nuts or berries

But on the other hand:

• They are usually less tasty, at least in my opinion
• It takes ALOT of berries to fill you up versus some meat

 

[happyflowerlady]

I have been learning about the edible wild foods, and even though I live in town, we have some of the more common ones, such as dandelions and clover. In the spring, there are the wild violets, which are both beautiful and edible. The green leaves and little violet blossoms are both delicious in a salad.
Dandelions are a wonderful wild food, and just about every part of a dandelion can be used. The green leaves are a little bitter when you eat them raw, but when you add the leaves in with a little spinach, and maybe a handful of clover leaves, and cook it along with some bacon, and then scramble an egg in the whole thing; it is delicious!

Dandelion blossoms can be battered and fried. I have read about this, but have not actually tried eating the blossom this way yet. The roots can be roasted and used along with coffee, to flavor it; however, this takes a lot of dandelion digging for a very small amount of roots.

I had to dig up the dandelion (and they have deep roots) then wash off the roots, put them in the oven on low temperature ( I was using an old wood cookstove, so not so easy to keep the temperature stable either), and once they were roasted to a dark chocolate color, I put them in the blender to grind them up. For an afternoon's work, I had about a cup of dandelion/coffee grounds. I ended up mixing them in with the coffee, and the dandelion roots did add an excellent flavor to my coffee, kind of like adding chickory, which is also related to dandelions, but has blue blossoms instead of yellow.

 

[JessiFox]

Josh, I'm not seeing a link in there either? Would you mind coming back with it? lol I'm curious!

Yes, I suppose it does take more to fill you up, but it can be good to know if nothing else if you're really in a pinch.

Happyflowerlady, your post really inspires me to want to learn more about edible plants! That does sound delicious! Very interesting stuff indeed .

 

[happyflowerlady]

Jessi, no matter where you live , there should be some edible wild plants, or even some that are just growing in your yard, like dandelions and clover do. What is amazing, at least to me, is that many of the plants that we think of as weeds, were actually brought over to America when the first settlers came here from England, or Europe. Dandelions were a highly prized herb, because they had so many health-nourishing properties , and they were one of the main healing plants.

Other plants that we think of as weeds, like Tansy, were also carefully brought here and planted, but became so adapted to the climate here, they are now considered a noxious weed. Tansy is great to keep bugs out of the house (or tent), and people used to scatter it on the floor (which was only dirt anyway) to keep the bugs out of the house.

There is a wonderful website called "Eat the Weeds", and you can look on there and see what edible foods grow in your area, how to find them, and what they are best used for, as well as how to prepare them. There are also some wonderful tutorial videos put out by Green Dean , so you can actually see him foraging for the wild plants.

 

[2sweed]

Try this link to find out more about wild edible plants.
https://campingbabble.com/threads/edible-wild-plants-berries.222/

 

[kevinkimers]

There are lots of edible vegetation out there, but you have to learn to tell the difference between edible and poisonous. There are some plants that look exactly alike but one is poisonous and the other is not. When attempting to do hunting and gathering, a person should always carry a full color book with images as well as descriptions of edible plants and their poisonous counterparts. Especially when dealing with mushrooms. For instance, there are two types of mushrooms that look identical in many respects and they both grow on a tree.

American Mushroom -- Sulfur Shelf or Chicken Mushroom (Laetiporus sulphureus) .......but it's important because when the Chicken Mushroom or Sulfur Shelf grows on certain kinds of trees, it should be avoided!

Always do research and if in doubt.... throw it out.