The Scout's Guide to Wild Edibles. Mike Krebill
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Northwest Territories
HABITAT:
Few plants have as wide a range of habitats as chokecherry. It can be found in a variety of evergreen and deciduous forest types, and in deserts, basins, plateaus, savannas, flood plains and prairies.
POSITIVE ID:
• Chokecherry is a thicket-forming shrub or small tree.
• The small cherry-like fruit is borne in racemes and has an astringent taste until slightly past the fully-ripe stage (see When to Harvest). Fruit color ranges from red to purple or black.
• Each fruit is 1/4–3/8″ in diameter. Like other cherries, it is a drupe, with a single seed covered by a hard shell.
• Leaves range from 1–4″ long, are finely toothed and are broadly elliptical to ovate (egg-shaped).
• The bark has raised horizontal rows of lenticels.
EDIBLE PARTS & PREPARATION:
Fully ripe chokecherries make a fabulous fruit leather, juice, jelly and syrup. Hop over to page 108 for how to make Fabulous Fruit Leather.
WHEN TO HARVEST:
Late August, depending on the plant and location. Harvest when the fruit is fully ripe to slightly wrinkled, with color ranging from crimson red to a dark reddish-purple to black. They yield to pressure and are juicy, and should roll off the pedicels and into your hand when touched. If they still cling tightly, give them another week or two to ripen before trying again. Bitterness can vary from tree to tree, so it helps to do a taste test before putting them in the pail. Ripe chokecherries’ inherent bitterness is less pronounced when they are a bit overripe and the skin is slightly wrinkled. Cooking the fruit will also help dispel some of the bitterness.
SUSTAINABLE HARVESTING:
Picking the fruit does no harm to the plant.
PRESERVING THE HARVEST:
Pit the cherries and can, dry, or freeze the juice and pulp. Make fruit leather, jam, jelly or syrup.
The bitterness of chokecherries varies from tree to tree and is lessened when they are a bit overripe and slightly wrinkled.
Dandelion
RANGE:
Widespread throughout the U.S. and Canada
HABITAT:
Lawns
POSITIVE ID:
• Dandelion is a common yellow-flowering plant, abundant in the spring.
• Its deeply notched, toothed leaves stay in a basal rosette.
• Several flowers grow from a single rosette. Each flower has its own leafless, unbranched stalk. The flower head is 1–2″ in diameter.
• Flower stalks are hollow. When broken, the stalk bleeds a bitter white latex, as does the midvein of each leaf and the taproot.
• The seedhead is spherical. Seeds are attached to a pad in the center. Each has a thin stem tipped by a feathery umbrella-rib-like pappus, which functions as an open parachute to carry the seed away.
EDIBLE PARTS & PREPARATION:
The whole plant is edible. Wild foods expert Sam Thayer enjoys snacking on raw flower stalks, but I find them too bitter. Rapidly growing leaves are the least bitter; gather them from the shaded edge of mowed areas, where they turn vertical to compete for sunlight with the deep grass around them. Remove the bitter tasting midvein. Taproots can be roasted and ground to use in coffee or ice cream. Making dandelion flower donuts (page 138) is an easy and fun activity loved by thousands of students and Scouts. For something more savory, try making Dandy Burgers (page 141). To prepare dandelion flowers for cooking, see page 121.
WHEN TO HARVEST:
Spring for the leaves, flower buds and flowers; late summer, fall and early spring for the taproot
SUSTAINABLE HARVESTING:
Dandelion is such a persistent lawn weed that the only way you might not have a plentiful supply to harvest in the future is to use an herbicide to kill it and other weeds. If you want to have dandelions forever, don’t use herbicides.
PRESERVING THE HARVEST:
Leaves can be blanched and frozen. Roots can be baked to dehydrate them. Squeezed flowers (see Preparing Dandelions, page 121) can be frozen. Use before the next spring.
Dandelions grow rapidly when competing for sunlight. The unbranched, leafless hollow stem leading up to the flower head distinguishes them from plants that look similar.
Japanese Knotweed
RANGE:
Invasive and widespread since introduced for landscaping. Currently in much of North America except for the southwestern U.S., Louisiana and Florida, and the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada.
HABITAT:
Roadsides, streambanks, and disturbed ground; preferably moist sites
POSITIVE ID:
• Japanese knotweed is an erect, multi-stemmed, nonwoody plant that grows from 3–10″ tall.
• The stems are jointed, hollow and resemble bamboo.
• Its leaves are smooth-edged and would appear heartshaped if they weren’t flat at the base near the petiole.
• Small, greenish white flowers are clustered in showy spikes.
Japanese knotweed along a Michigan fence line in September, showing stalks, leaves and flowers. This dense stand was 9–10′ tall.
EDIBLE PARTS & PREPARATION:
Cut off young, still-flexible shoots up to 15″ tall. Immerse the cut ends of shoots in a bucket about 1/3 full of water to keep them from wilting. At home, remove and discard leaves. To reduce fibrousness, slice stems crosswise into thin coins. For longer, less flexible shoots, peel them before slicing as you might peel celery. Boil until soft, then strain. It will be remarkably similar in taste to stewed rhubarb: sour and slightly bitter. Sweeten to taste and serve, use in a mock rhubarb pie, or dehydrate and turn into fruit leather.
WHEN TO HARVEST:
Early to mid spring. Harvest at the shoot stage when few leaves have unfurled.
SUSTAINABLE HARVESTING:
This is one of the world’s most aggressive invasive plants. Cutting shoots seems to have no impact on it at all. However, while you don’t need to be concerned about sustainable harvesting, you should respect the wishes of the property owner, who may have planted them there for landscaping purposes.
PRESERVING THE HARVEST:
Perhaps the best way to preserve Japanese knotweed is to turn it into fruit leather. See page 108 for how to make Fabulous Fruit Leather.
Japanese knotweed shoots harvested from a West Virginia roadbank on the third week of April.