Sheep Sorrel

Fall has brought on a bout of wild plant enthusiasm. I just found out about and ordered Samuel Thayer's DVD on edible wild plant foraging (ha, guess that's one documentary off my to-do list!). I was watching it this past Saturday, and then went out to clean up the garden a bit. I was looking at a plant growing all over the place with very distinctly spearhead-shaped leaves, and I realized that had definitely been in the video I was watching.



Didn't take long to find the segment about Sheep Sorrel, Rumex acetosella. Apparently I made it through childhood never knowing about this one (cheeseweed was my childhood weed of choice). I was so excited, I plucked a few leaves and one by one, accosted the family and made them try it.

Husband: "Uh, no, not right now, thanks."
Maddy, 5 years old: "I don't want to!" Me: "Oh, come on!" Her: "OK..." She took a nibble and dropped the leaf into her water. I told her that was a good idea, she could make lemonade that way, and she beamed.
Colin, 3 years old, tried one. Then asked for another, and the remaining few I had in my hand.

Colin is more like me than anyone else in the family. His sister is very take-charge and fearless. Colin is more laid-back. When we all go on nature walks, Maddy and her Dad are soon way ahead of us. Colin and I lag behind, taking it slow and looking at mushrooms. So if anyone is going to be my foraging protege, it's him.

A few minutes later, he actually asked if we could go out and get some more "lemon leaves." I could hardly contain my delight. I took him over to the garden, and showed him the plant, and how to pinch off the leaves. We moved from patch to patch, because there really was a lot of it, I've probably pulled dozens of them from the garden when weeding and not even realized it was edible, and as we went, he got better about identifying the plant. He even pointed out a leaf where the two base spikey ends weren't symmetrical, questioning me about it. So proud!

After half an hour or so, we came inside with two small containers of sheep sorrel leaves, which he plopped down on the couch with and began to snack on.



His first foraging expedition! Unless you count the acorns last weekend, and I'm sure the kids don't. We'll talk about those later. I still have about a cup of the boiled meats sitting around.

Edible Wild Taxonomy

One thing I love about the edible wild plant hobby is learning all the Latin names for the different species. Rumex crispus (Curly Dock) has always been my favorite, just for sounding like it could have ruled Rome if it wanted to.

Here are 10 common wild edibles, as a Byki vocabulary list. If you download Byki Express (which is free) and import the list, the program will help you memorize them via magical memory algorithms.



If you have Byki Deluxe or Express, go to the list home page here, then click the .b4u button on their pages to download the list to your desktop, then launch Byki and choose List -> Import List, or practice directly in your browser via the above link.

I'll create more of these lists as I get more pictures together. In the "More" tab, I linked to Samuel Thayer's website rather than my own blog, because I just started reading his "Nature's Garden" book last night, and was thrilled with the quality. More on that later...

Showy milkweed

Showy milkweed was common in Montana, all over the place, in fact, and I knew it was supposed to be a decent edible plant. However, I'd never actually tried it.


Showy milkweed, Asclepias syriaca

Showy milkweed is around here in New Hampshire, too, though not as common in this area as it was out west. I was out today getting a picture of wintergreen, and on the way back to the car I saw milkweed. The pods looked pretty young, so I picked one. I wasn't sure if I was just going to cut it open and photograph it or what, but by the time I got home, I had decided to try cooking it.

What I've read about milkweed insists that you boil it through multiple waters for like 15 minutes to get all the bitter out. So I set two pots of water to boil on the stove, one for cooking the pod, the other for changing the water bath with more boiling water.



I wound up doing 4 water changes, the last 2 were salted water, and the total cooking time was about 15 minutes. I figured the thing would be mush by the end of that.

Now, to taste it. Euell Gibbons is a fan of liberal butter and salt (also bacon drippings whenever possible). So I put some butter and salt on the thing, and cut it open.



The silk and developing seeds inside were resistant to being cut, very resistant, so I scooped them out and put them to the side, focusing for the moment on the pod.

Fully expecting it to taste foul (surely I couldn't have cooked all the bitter out), I took the first bite. It was neither bitter nor overcooked. In fact, it was delicious. It tasted like corn, but with a completely different texture. I immediately regretted only picking one. :)

So I ate the whole pod, then figured I'd try the silk and seeds, though I doubted that would go well. Surprise again. They tasted every bit as good, with yet another completely different texture. Very chewy. For a long, long time, but not the scratchy sticking in your throat kind of thing I expected from the silks.

It was good, it was ALL good. Highly recommend it, preparation was simple. Also, there are no poisonous species closely resembling this plant, which is always a plus. I suppose the biggest concern is getting the pods before the silk innerds mature too much, but if they do, you can just eat the outter pod.



For a great writeup on milkweed from an edible wild plant expert, check out "Milkweed: A Truly Remarkable Wild Vegetable" on Samuel Thayer's website.

Hummingbird Moth

I was in western New Hampshire today, visiting my Mom. We were on the back porch when we noticed what looked like a very large bumblebee flitting around the phlox next to us. Only it was sort of rusty orange-red, at least an inch long, and had green coloring to its head. And Martian-style antennae. And a hummingbird-style tail.

Mom thought it might be a hummingbird moth, which I'd never heard of. It acted like a hummingbird, except it wasn't afraid of us at all. After a minute it flew away, but I went out to grab my camera in case it came back, and our stake-out began.

Within the hour, it was back, with a smaller and less colorful companion. By now two friends had responded to my post on Twitter about the thing, both agreeing that it was a hummingbird moth, and with a link to pictures confirming it.

I stayed around the flowers, and the moth kept coming back, so I got dozens of pictures. Of course, it refused to hold still for more than a split second at a time, so dozens of pictures were required.








About an hour into this, I decided to grab some footage with my phone. Hummingbird moth was happy to oblige.






The next time it came back, I reached out to touch it. Not capture it, or hurt it in any way but just to see if it would let me. Which it did, briefly resting its tiny feet on my finger. I could also feel the wind of its wings blowing on my hand. An Avatar moment!

It's really neat when nature reveals something new, as if to say, "You can scarcely grasp what wonders lie within my domain. Did you know about this one?"

Euell Gibbons

Euell Gibbons was the original poster boy for edible wild plants. I loved his book, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, especially the later chapter where he goes on an edible wild foods retreat with another couple. I always dreamed of doing that, and probably will do it sometime with my kids (I'll use the "it's educational" excuse to rope my husband in on it, too).

Gibbons didn't start out wanting to be the spokesman for weed-eaters; I recall reading that he originally wanted to write fiction, but the editors steered him towards writing about this topic instead.



He also once did a Grapenuts commercial. Here it is.



I wish I'd had a chance to meet this guy. He's far more passionate about the subject than I could ever be, and I admire that no end. Together, he and outdoor humorist Patrick F. McManus had a huge influence on my youth.

iBird for iPhone

Wow, it's been a while since I posted on this blog. :)

I recently purchased iBird for the iPhone (North edition) and I wanted to mention it here because it's a really neat little app. I looked up a few birds that I know are local to us, and it's fun listening to the song audio for those birds, and learning which of them is making the songs we hear every morning.

I saw a bird at the feeder that I didn't recognize yesterday, though, so I decided to try the search feature of the iBird app. I put in the size (small), primary color (brown), and secondary color(red), as well as the frequency with which I saw the bird in our yard. I was very impressed that the app returned a single search result - exactly the bird in question, a house finch.

The other outdoorsy app I have is the Geocaching app (btw, Geocaching just turned 10, happy birthday!). I haven't used this app yet, but I'm really looking forward to getting the kids involved with this hobby. More on that later.