Foraging

If there were a way to measure each nation’s tolerance for bold flavors that were not made bold by salt or sugar, I’d bet The United States would have the lowest tolerance of all, and I feel like this is something we really should work on. We’re a melting pot of so many cultures with so many...

You might feel so familiar with dandelions that when you hear about them each spring, you’re immediately bored and want to move on to something new and sexy. You might have tried the leaves and thought they were too bitter or tried making tea with the roots to cleanse your liver but thought the...

Juniper is known in most circles (American, at least) for being the star flavor in your gin and tonic, a drink I associate, lovingly, with summertime (unless in the exempt arena of an airport or a casino where I enjoy them year-round). But beyond gin and beyond summer, juniper is the staple spice of...

When I was a kid, grapes always seemed way out of my league—totems of opulence only to be hand-fed to goddesses and satyrs, on some faraway land, in some faraway time. It took me an embarrassing number of years to recognize the vines, draped like velvet ropes with their pendulous clusters of fruit...

If you search for “autumn olive” on the internet, you get articles from all manner of agricultural, forestry, and conservation services telling you how to eradicate it from the landscape, profiling it as an aggressive invasive exotic. It’s interesting that while there’s so much information on...

The closest I come to playing sports is foraging for hazelnuts. I tend to go belly-up at the whiff of competition, but everything in my DNA wants hazelnuts and wants them badly enough to stand my ground in the thicket even though every other animal there wants them, too. Squirrels, chipmunks, deer...

If you did your due diligence this spring and took note of where all the white flowering trees and shrubs were, you’re likely starting to see the fruits of that labor, now. Juneberries have come and gone, mulberries too, and next we begin checking hedgerows for stonefruits, including one of my very...

Daylilies (genus Hemerocallis) are a common flowering perennial in most of the lower 48. Native to Asia, these hardy plants that are commonly called ditch lilies can be found growing along roads, old house sites, lawns, and just about anywhere else. I love growing these plants for a few reasons—they...

My family and I worked a patch of blackcap raspberries along a road winding through the mountains of central Pennsylvania. We’d waited until the heat of the July day broke with the evening to come pick. With only an hour of light left, we quickly tried to fill a gallon to freeze, and hopefully a cup...

If you’ve ever accidently grazed against a stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) with your bare skin, you’ll know it. You’ll first feel a stinging sensation, quick and sharp, and then your skin will start to blister. The accompanying pain and itch can last for days. This is all thanks to the hollow hairs...

Milkweed is a shining example of why we shouldn’t believe everything that we read. It carries with it, to this day, many myths that have traveled from mouth to ear and onward without fact-checking or personal experience. Myth number one is that it’s toxic, myth number two is that it’s bitter, and...

Spruce tips have been having a culinary moment for a few years now, which I love and understand—they are delightful, but I don’t know why the spotlight hasn’t expanded to include the tender tips of all our other evergreens, too. Pine, fir, and hemlock are easier to access for most people in the...