Foraging and Remembering
Posted in Culture, Plants, ethnobotany, foraging, gardening, invasive species, local food, permaculture, wild food on May 23rd, 2010
Cynara cardunculus, or artichoke thistle, is the wild version of the commerical artichoke. But get this, they taste the same, and have delicious hearts, but they are armored with thistle spikes. Considering eating a whole artichoke down the heart is a slow food and fun ordeal already in our culinary traditions, [...]
Posted in Plants, ethnobotany, foraging, local food, wild food on Nov 26th, 2009
You roast them until dark brown, almost black. Like dark roasted coffee or dark chocolate. They contain caffeine like stimulants and an extraordinarily rich flavor profile.
They are related to avocados, in the Laurel or Lauraceae family, and their fruit when fully ripe can be eaten like an avocado. [...]
Posted in Plants, ethnobotany, foraging, wild food on Oct 30th, 2009
John Farais, a chef specializing in Native American cuisine, has discovered a very cool way to leach these Valley Oak acorns to make them into edible acorn flour. I suspect this will not work for the higher tannin Live Oak or Black Oak (these acorns are yellow fleshed) as there wouldn’t be [...]
Posted in Plants, ethnobotany, foraging, wild food on Oct 28th, 2009
We in the Bay Area home of the Valley Oak (Lafayette/Walnut Creek area), are in a dire situation. We have a week or two to harvest all the acorns fallen off this year’s bumper crop. Seriously, each and every acorn is crying out to us as we literally walk and drive on [...]
Posted in Plants, Uncategorized, ethnobotany, foraging, gardening, local food, wild food on Oct 24th, 2009
If all the acorns around you have got your feeling a little squirrely, here’s the short, short version of what you can do:
If you have Valley Oak or similar acorns (they are cream colored “white” as opposed to yellow), crack them easily with a nutcracker or a rock against a hard surface. Grind [...]
Posted in ethnobotany, permaculture, tending the wild on Aug 26th, 2009
Alright, this is not the place to talk about how the standard lawn is a major contributor to ecological devastation worldwide. You probably wouldn’t be reading something called FERAL if you didn’t already know that. I recently came across a front lawn which was made of yarrow (Achillea millefolium). I’m sure it needs no more [...]
Posted in Plants, ethnobotany, foraging, local food, wild food on May 6th, 2009
I have a huge crop of wild oats standing in the open space around me. Does anybody have any idea what to do with them? The husk seems mighty.
I recently learned from Green Deane that some East Coast natives used to grind the nuts of Prunus [...]
Posted in ecodreaming, ethnobotany, feralculture, mushrooms, permaculture, tending the wild, wild food on Feb 20th, 2009
Please go to Ideablob and vote for my idea! Especially if you want me to keep on being Feral and making videos and writing posts!
Feraltopia: An Ethnobotanical Park
Feraltopia aims to provide a place for foragers to gather and interact with wild plants and mushrooms. It also serves as a primitive [...]
Posted in ecodreaming, ethnobotany, local food, permaculture, tending the wild, wild food on Feb 16th, 2009
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Posted in Elaeagnus, ethnobotany, feralculture, gardening, holistic health, invasive species, local food, permaculture, wild food on Sep 7th, 2008
1. This species of Elaeagnus is NOT invasive in my area. “Invasive” meaning in this case, seeds won’t germinate and grow through natural conditions.
2. There are no objective definitions of “invasive” and “native.” Modern ecology tells us that pretty much all ecosystems are recently evolved aggregates. All species [...]
