Free Food (eating weeds)

[catfeathers]

I had dandelion greens and fried dandelion flowers for supper. I also have dried mullein and spearmint that I make tea from sometimes. I'm trying to learn to identify other edible plants. Are there any wild plants that you like to eat?

[Origanalist]

There was a thread on nettles a while back. I don't think they are quite out yet though.

[jmdrake]

I was short on lunch money today and ate some raw dandelion tops. Pretty good actually. Beyond that there are wild onions, violents, plantains, sour oxalys (known as sourgrass), hickory nuts, acorns, blackberries, huckleberries, mulberries (my favorite), cattails, thistles, kudzu (you can eat the whole plant), poke salad, red clover, white clover, yellow clover, elderberries, wild strawberries, sassafrass (best tea on the planet), horsemint, and several varieties of mushrooms I know. (I know I'm forgetting something).

[kcchiefs6465]

Acorns? At the risk of sounding incredibly stupid, I didn't think you could eat those? I thought they were poisonous to humans? Or maybe just for kids? I'm not sure where I heard that at.

[Origanalist]

Acorns? At the risk of sounding incredibly stupid, I didn't think you could eat those? I thought they were poisonous to humans? Or maybe just for kids? I'm not sure where I heard that at.

No, they are quite tasty.

[jmdrake]

Acorns? At the risk of sounding incredibly stupid, I didn't think you could eat those? I thought they were poisonous to humans? Or maybe just for kids? I'm not sure where I heard that at.

Certain Indian tribes used acorns as a staple food. You just have to know how to prepare them. (And one variety of acorn can be eaten raw). The same is true for poke salad. Acorns have tanic acid in them (used for tanning leather).

Here are a couple of methods.

http://www.grandpappy.info/racorns.htm

http://survival.outdoorlife.com/blog...-survival-food

If you try to eat an acorn without proper preparation, you won't die (at least I didn't when I was 4), but it tastes so bad you will immediately spit it out and wash your mouth out.

I would post my latest mushroom adventure, but I'm afraid some idiot would try it and their family would sue me.

[Origanalist]

Certain Indian tribes used acorns as a staple food. You just have to know how to prepare them. (And one variety of acorn can be eaten raw). The same is true for poke salad. Acorns have tanic acid in them (used for tanning leather).

Here are a couple of methods.

http://www.grandpappy.info/racorns.htm

http://survival.outdoorlife.com/blog...-survival-food

If you try to eat an acorn without proper preparation, you won't die (at least I didn't when I was 4), but it tastes so bad you will immediately spit it out and wash your mouth out.

I would post my latest mushroom adventure, but I'm afraid some idiot would try it and their family would sue me.

Mushrooms can be pretty dangerous, if you aren't sure it's best not to try......

[Dr.3D]

Something you will also find in many lawns around the country.

The leaves are edible as a salad green when young and tender, but they quickly become tough and fibrous as they get older. The older leaves can be cooked in stews.[13] The leaves contain calcium and other minerals, with 100 grams of plantain containing approximately the same amount of vitamin A as a large carrot. The seeds are so small that they are tedious to gather, but they can be ground into a flour substitute or extender.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantago_major

[kcchiefs6465]

Certain Indian tribes used acorns as a staple food. You just have to know how to prepare them. (And one variety of acorn can be eaten raw). The same is true for poke salad. Acorns have tanic acid in them (used for tanning leather).

Here are a couple of methods.

http://www.grandpappy.info/racorns.htm

http://survival.outdoorlife.com/blog...-survival-food

If you try to eat an acorn without proper preparation, you won't die (at least I didn't when I was 4), but it tastes so bad you will immediately spit it out and wash your mouth out.

I would post my latest mushroom adventure, but I'm afraid some idiot would try it and their family would sue me.

Please do. I won't sue... lol. Seriously though, I've always wanted to go mushroom picking but I don't know, it's intimidating. A lot of little things, if you overlook, can get you a poisonous mushroom instead of the one you thought it was. I've read a little bit about it a while ago. Have you ever gotten sick?

Even the disclaimers in the books are offputting.

[kcchiefs6465]

Something you will also find in many lawns around the country.

I've seen those in the Midwest. Are they any good?

[Dr.3D]

I've seen those in the Midwest. Are they any good?

I dunno, I only found out about them last fall. Ask donnay, that's where I found out about them.

[Brian4Liberty]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claytonia_perfoliata
http://www.permies.com/t/608/wild-ha.../miner-lettuce

[jmdrake]

Something you will also find in many lawns around the country.

Every survival kit should have some plantain in it. True story. I occassionaly train martial arts. One day I noticed my training partner had a spot on his wrist. I asked him where it came from. He said that he had had a brown recluse spider bite. Shocked, because I've seen the horror pics on the internet of large chuncks of flesh rotted away from BRs, I asked him what he did about it. He told me he didn't have any insurance, so his wife went to the yard, picked some plantain (not sure if it was broad or narrow), chewed it up, put it on the bite and put some tape over it. That's it! The spot healed much better than if he had gone to the hospital.

I asked a naturalist about this (wonderful 80 something y/o lady) and she told me "Yes. It's known as God's eraser. Rub it on any insect bite or sting and it rubs out the pain." Sometime later I was at a large church convention. One pastor's son got stung by a yellow jacket. After walking around for a while looking for a first aid kit, I tried "God's eraser" and low and behold...it worked.

[jmdrake]

Mushrooms can be pretty dangerous, if you aren't sure it's best not to try......

You are 100% correct. Which is why I didn't post it. Someone else's death from misreading my advice would bother me more than my own.

Please do. I won't sue... lol. Seriously though, I've always wanted to go mushroom picking but I don't know, it's intimidating. A lot of little things, if you overlook, can get you a poisonous mushroom instead of the one you thought it was. I've read a little bit about it a while ago. Have you ever gotten sick?

Even the disclaimers in the books are offputting.

LOL. I had one survival book from years ago that posted an "edibility rule" about mushrooms. but I haven't been able to verify it. I do know a couple of wild edible mushrooms very well from my days as a child in a wilderness survival club, which are puffball and inky cap. The puffball can be confused for the poisonous aminita, but the puffball is solid inside and the young aminita is hollow with a mushroom cap inside.

Anyhow, the offputting disclaimers are because a) some mushrooms are very poisonous b) unlike plants you often can't tell that from taste or smell (yes, with a lot of plants that are poisonous you can safely taste a little bit and spit it out if it's bad), 3) some poisonous mushrooms look like safe ones. I'd suggest finding a local person that's into murshrooms (check out Meetup.com for that) and go with them sometime. If they don't die, you know the mushroom is safe.

[The Northbreather]

Watercress is delicious. Had some fiddle-head fern soup the other day

[Tinnuhana]

Slippery Jack mushrooms, which grow on white pine roots, are easy to identify. They have yellow pores (instead of gills) on the underside and have a brown cap that gets slimey when wet (hence the name). They are edible but don't taste that good, escept as a condiment ground up. Of course, morels aren't that hard to identify and I don't think there are any poisonous shrooms that look like them. There are places in NH where these are fairly abundant.
The clavariadephus truncatas (sp?) is unmistakeable, shaped like an orangish cone. It has a slightly sweet taste due to the low alcohol (manitol) content. Only problem is, if you eat too many, diarrhea may result, just like if you eat too much "sugarless" candy that's sweetened with manitol.

[Barrex]

Acorns? At the risk of sounding incredibly stupid, I didn't think you could eat those? I thought they were poisonous to humans? Or maybe just for kids? I'm not sure where I heard that at.

I apologize but I loled.

When roman legions would march/occupy etc they had standing orders to plant chestnuts (mostly) and oak (acorns) so that in the future they can feed them self.

[amy31416]

Purslane!

[jmdrake]

Watercress is delicious. Had some fiddle-head fern soup the other day

I've got some fiddle-heads growing in my back yard. Can you post the recipe?

[jmdrake]

Purslane!

Oh yeah! That's some good stuff. Packed with omega-3s. I love eating it raw.

[tfurrh]

I forage about one meal a week from my yard. Clover, cleaver, henbit, dandelions, pony's foot,.....

[Tinnuhana]

I bet fiddleheads fried in Italian dressing or vinaegrette would taste pretty good. I used to hate broccolli till someone skillet-fried it in salad dressing and gave me some.
Acorns you have to soak and squeeze out the tannic acid several times till you get a paste/flour you can use.

[tfurrh]

http://www.foragingtexas.com/?m=0

My favorite foraging website. It has pics, and tips on how to prepare the food. You can also filter by season, color, or location (yard, pasture, woods).

[Nirvikalpa]

Please do. I won't sue... lol. Seriously though, I've always wanted to go mushroom picking but I don't know, it's intimidating. A lot of little things, if you overlook, can get you a poisonous mushroom instead of the one you thought it was. I've read a little bit about it a while ago. Have you ever gotten sick?

Even the disclaimers in the books are offputting.

A lot of local colleges have courses on mycology (study of fungus) that could be interesting to take.

Or, there are definitely "meetups" that go hiking purposely to find mushrooms.

[tod evans]

Dogwoods are blooming, that means morels are up..


[edit] Wish these were on my counter..

[TonySutton]

My grandmother always kept bags in the trunk of the car. As my grandfather would be driving down the road she would yell "Ken, pull over!" She would get out on the side of the road and pick collards along the roadside.

[phill4paul]

Every survival kit should have some plantain in it. True story. I occassionaly train martial arts. One day I noticed my training partner had a spot on his wrist. I asked him where it came from. He said that he had had a brown recluse spider bite. Shocked, because I've seen the horror pics on the internet of large chuncks of flesh rotted away from BRs, I asked him what he did about it. He told me he didn't have any insurance, so his wife went to the yard, picked some plantain (not sure if it was broad or narrow), chewed it up, put it on the bite and put some tape over it. That's it! The spot healed much better than if he had gone to the hospital.

I asked a naturalist about this (wonderful 80 something y/o lady) and she told me "Yes. It's known as God's eraser. Rub it on any insect bite or sting and it rubs out the pain." Sometime later I was at a large church convention. One pastor's son got stung by a yellow jacket. After walking around for a while looking for a first aid kit, I tried "God's eraser" and low and behold...it worked.

I have used it on yellow jacket bites also.

[BAllen]

I found one of these on my daily walk. Is it edible?

[Nirvikalpa]

^ Just another "noxious weed."

(yes, I am aware it looks more like indica than sativa, but for the link's sake...)

[Origanalist]

I found one of these on my daily walk. Is it edible?

I hear it makes pretty good rope.