FogHorn May 3, 2018  - Wild Food Foraging by Suzanne Elliot, Master Herbalist

Her classes teach how to harvest our food and integrate food as medicine, bridging between via book and hands on learning.

What is a weed? Ralph Waldo Emerson describes a weed as a plant whose virtues are yet to be discovered. Every plant was wild, only later were they domesticated, hybridized, genetically modified etc.

Wild plants growing on their own have built up strong immunities and are well adapted.  

Suzanne brought a bouquet of common wild plants to demonstrate. The first is common mallo of the holly hock family which also includes the hibiscus. It is an Okra relative with a neutral flavor. It can bu used as a mild tea or rated like spinach. For preservation the roots are dried from which she makes a cough syrup which is slimy and soothing. Common mall can also be used in soup or stews as a thickener without altering the taste. If you want creamed spinach common mall is a good substitute and it can also be prepared breaded like okra.

Naturalized “natives” examples:
Wild mustard which blossoms bright yellow in early spring. It has a tart bite to it and its stems and leaves are edible raw or in soups.
Arena fatua or skinny oats make an oat tea the best you’ll ever last; boil stems leaves and seed heads and let steep a couple hours, the sweeter the longer. Its a Heal Project special for excitable children. 
Wild radishes have white, purple or pink flowers - the whole plant is edible. Dress up your scrambled eggs with wild radishes - brought over by Europeans
Fennel can be identified by its smell to distinguish it from similar looking plants. Dp not use the bulb of wild fennel, use the seeds and leaves which make a delicious liquor. She bakes the seeds into biscotti and adds the leaves to soups and salads.

There are an abundance or possibilities out there - “Be Adventurous!”

Medicinal plants:
Wild Oats - nerve tonic, works as food to the nerve system
Poppies are mild relaxing as a tea
Poppies and Oats together are a mild sleep potion

The QandA
Are these plants psycho active? No
What are some bad actors in the plant world? Water hemlock which looks a lot like a carrot plant aka Queen Ann’s Lace. Poison hemlock looks like fennel but lacks the smell.
What makes the fields by the airport and elsewhere on the coast turn YELLOW? Oxalis and wild mustard
What is a good guide book for an interested person to consult? A Peterson Field Guide of Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs by Stephen Foster and Christopher Hobbvs
Why does my dog eat grass? They eat it for minerals and vitamins. Cats eat it for an emitic for getting rid of a hair ball.
What can you tell us about collecting mushrooms? I don’t do mushrooms  (that will have to be another speaker)

 

Next Thursday we’ll be meeting at 5:30pm at Zaballa Square for a social with wine bar and beer 

The following week our speaker will Aldis Petrictis on Anatomy and Mortality

In closing, he reminds us that “Together we are ending Polio”. Rotary is responsible for 2.5 billion children being immunized against Polio and there are now only 10 cases every year in the whole world. One final exhortation: “Go, be people of action!”