I love free food. Especially if it tastes good and is nutritious too. There is something deeply satisfying to me about foraging for wild food and then preparing it and tasting it paying attention to its unique flavors and textures. When it tastes top shelf and delivers a gourmet experience- well, that’s the best feeling of all.
This blog is my rambling culinary foraging around my house in Central Appalachia. My first explorations into wild edibles was through my mom and dad while living in Central Virginia. Mom would chop young bamboo shoots from the yard and we’d have them in a Chinese stir fry. Daddy was the real forager though. He would cut and eat poke even when it was a little too tall to be good. It was free, so it tickled his miserly fancy. He hunted what he called creese salad in early spring. My memory is murky, so I still don’t know what that was. Maybe it was water cress or maybe not. It could have been a spring mustard of one kind or another. I remember the taste -sort of, but I haven’t ever been positive I have found it.
In early April, violet flowers are a slightly sweet, fresh taste popped straight into the mouth. I love to garnish salads or pasta dishes with these. They grow in my lawn and along the road. They are easy to pick. I can keep them in the fridge or in a vase on the counter. They class up my dinners even if I’m having hamburgers.
People say I live in a food desert. I shake my head. I live in a free grocery store where the food is there for the foraging. Rain falls frequently, green vegetation covers the hills seven months out of the year, trees grow tall and seasons bring an ever changing array of possible foods to harvest for free. Veggies start appearing in late March and early April. Dandelion greens are one of the most common examples of free food. I could can pay for them in Kroger’s. But why? They grow in my yard and along my road. In early April, I like to make a salad from the yard out of the tips of dandelion leaves and sorrel overwintering in the garden. I add a few dried cranberries and slivered almonds. With a slightly sweet dressing from oil, vinegar and a little sugar, I have a nutritious taste of spring. The slightly sweet cranberries and sour/sweet dressing softens the bitterness in the dandelions.
Day Lilies
The tender stem bases of the early daylily shoots are mildly floral and easy to cook with. I get excited every time I spot a new patch of day lilies on the side of the road with no houses nearby. I know, I’m not normal. But you laugh all you want. I’m the lucky one who knows this free food is delicious! In its simplest form, I sauté these in butter for 2-3 minutes. A touch of salt will bring out the flavor.
Daylily shoots work for me in salads, pasta dishes, and pesto. I will substitute daylily shoots for spinach or asparagus. I love it plain sautéed the best.
I find if I clean them when I pick them I have less prep work back in my kitchen. I take a trowel tip and run it down into the soil next to a shoot and try to break the stem off as close to the roots as I can get it. Then I snip of the green leaves leaving only the shoot to go into my collection bag as clean as I can make it. Dirt tends to collect in the leaf creases like leeks. I either ignore it or try to wash it out back in my kitchen. A little dirt never hurt me yet.
You can eat that? 