Weedseason

It's milkweed and pokeweed season. Pokeweed in my opinion is the far better of the two, but alas, on the way to work today, taking the railroad track route to hopefully find some pokeweed, all I found was lots of milkweed. This is about the sketchiest of all habitats that I "urban forage" (most of my urban foraging is done in nicer places, along rivers, in parks, etc. Railroad tracks through industrial Cambridge I consider more quintessential urban foraging).



But, already ate them for lunch, along with a big wollop of tansy just to try that out. Let's say they went down, but I won't be recording the recipe for the ages.

Some pics here
of the foraging tour from Saturday. We had a good time, exploring somerville, medford, and arlington, and feasted on our findings at the end, which included oysters mushrooms, nettles, a lot of pokeweed, and a large mixed green salad of linden leaves, dandelions, chickweed, redbud, and sorrel, and a stir fry of knotweed, burdock, cattails, and the mushrooms (including a young Dryad's Saddle!).

I am super impressed when people are completely shameless about their dumpster diving. Go Zaac, who led us into the Arlington TJs dumpster in broad day light, no feeling like he needed to explain anything to anyone or justify it, at all. Just another part of life. All the stuff that would have ended up there - which looked like a ton - we spotted tucked off in some red push cartons, so, not technically garbage yet, so we passed it up. If it were only a bit closer to Cambridge...

Here is the Japanese Knotweed Hot Pickle recipe that lots of folks have been asking me about. This is the first season I can get people to consistently say "wow, these are great!" and they are talking about knotweed pickles, not say, lobster rolls. Given the years of japanese knotweed stir fry attempts, this is big progress. Next year, I should approach grillospickles.com and get them hooked for running a few batches. And I should get some mugwort, tansy, etc for gruit for some local old school beer making, and then talk Cambridge brewing into doing that.

OK, on to the recipe:

JAPANESE KNOTWEED HOT PICKLES
1 part vinegar
1 part water
Bring this to a boil and add some pickling spices and salt. I like whole black peppercorns and red pepper flakes.

Add enough tender knotweed (first couple weeks of growth, whole stalk, after that, just the top section that easily breaks off) so that it is just covered. Remove from the flame. It does not need to cook at all, just being plunged in the boiling water vinegar solution is fine.

Put into sterilized mason jars. Ready for consumption as soon as they cool off! Great in salads.




In the works: hawthorn flower infused brandy. And once elderflowers are out, I will go for the homemade St. Germain. Alcohol infusions ("schnapps") I can handle but making beer and massive quantities of japanese knotweed pickles, that I must outsource.

The Gallery fundraising foraging dinner cooked by Didi Emmons was a smashing success. Many people gawked over the nettle burdock risotto, but I was most pleased with being able to find enough wild greens for a full salad for all 47 attendees. Here I am in the vineyard watercress patch, a place of real beauty.

Weed Foraged Pizza and eating grass

Foraging season is off to a fine start despite the cold weather we've been having here in Boston. Nettles were already poking up in some sunny spots a couple of weeks ago. Young mugwort, plantain, and dandelions are ready to be gathered, and the banks of the Charles are well stocked with evening primrose roots. I don't consider MGH to be great foraging grounds, but I just took a walk to find some plants to throw on my foraged pizza and was able to doctor it up nicely with all of these.



Very soon we won't be able to keep up with all the greens. The japanese knotweed (itadori -- see this cool site) onslaught is almost upon us. With this preparation technique to try, plus my soon-to-befamous hot pickle, we'll be ale to handle it no problem.

I wrote in my book that "all grasses are edible but only the young ones are digestible." On my walk that I just took, I noticed a lot of fresh young grass growing out of some haystacks (no surprise) that are lining the Charles. So, I decided to put my mouth where my words were and I ate some. It was decent.

Welcome to Spring. I hope to write a post on cleavers (an early spring edible) soon. This is a reminder to myself to do so.

My new foraging tour schedule site

foragelive.com

Eden still open

After staying up until 5:20 am playing guitar all night at Pete's party, I ended up in bed at 8:30 pm last night. Up at 5:15, like a farmer, and I decided to check out my favorite pair of apple trees. Every time I go I there I think it will be my last of the season, but, alas, there are always a few more goldens hanging on up there, making this a very long apple season. I brought a bunch home and "put up" some more apple sauce. This one I used the food processor on to whip it into baby food consistency, just to switch it up from my usual chunky blend. There they are, on the tree, in the 5:45 AM light, Allston building lights in the background.

I thought this picture of the ball jars being prepped in the microwave would look nice, but what I really got out of it was a reminder to clean the thing.

Here they are before getting cooked, and on the left you can see the sauerkraut I started last week. It is fermenting along well.

Speaking of apples, on Saturday, out for a walk (before the 10 hours finger numbing guitar playing session), I stumbled into the BU art gallery for a work-in-progress exhibit by triplet sisters from J.P. called In Search of Eden. They are called triiibe. Eden brings up apples, and they had a great collection of wacky apples from the living apple museum in upstate, Geneva, New York. I ate a big one that looked like an Asian pear. Also, free tea and music for everyone, it was a nice treat.

Nerdnite

Here are the slides for the talk I gave at nerdnite. I brought a bunch of food: boiled acorns, boiled burdock, pickled japanese knotweed, pickled purslane -- the usual fare. Expected to go home with most of it but the crowd ate it up. I mean, the acorns were boiled not nearly long enough to remove all the tannins, but at least one person was loving them anyhow...said they were "addictive". The biggest praise Cambridge acorns have ever received.

Hot potato 2 is coming up. To that end, I will hop the apple fence one last time tonight to see if there are any stragglers left on the ground that have not been beaten too badly by the frosts, and I will step foot into Trader Joe's and plunk down some cash for the cheapest wine in town. Hopefully I'll also find some time to tickle the ivories too. I am working my way through the Goldberg Variations..see how many times I can cycle through the full set this winter. Anything to procrastinate the manual grunt work required for moving into the new apartment.

Not quite Thoreau (thorough)

Thoreau recorded extensive notes of what was flowering/fruiting/etc when. In that vein I'll offer a highly abbreviated recording: black nightshade still to be found, as well as burdock and lamb's quarters and apples.

Dodder

As always with a new plant that I look up, there are conflicting reports on edibility. Last night at a really great lecture by the new director of the Arboretum, I was reminded to look up that orange thread-like plant that grows on other plants along the Charles River. I did, and found it: it is called dodder. Enough web sites say it is edible, and one that even says it's full of beta-carotene. Look out Charles River weird orange parasitic plants!