Search: burdock

If you are in the habit of eating wild mushroom then you’re waiting for the spring rains. Local this usually happens in latter April or early May. That and warmer ground temperature tells mushrooms to grow. As a prelude I had my first edible wild mushroom find of the season this week.

Old Man of the Woods, Strobilomyces sp.  is a rather distinct mushroom. There are a few variations  — a microscope helps to sort them out — but they are all edible. There are at least three species in North America and are in a group of mushrooms called Boletes. These mushrooms do not have gills but rather pores on the underside. The saving grace is none of them cause lasting organ damage if you eat a toxic one. There is a short check list one can use to tell if a Bolete is a potential edible.  In Europe most of the Boletes are edible, in North America most are not, and in The South if not Florida many are unidentified. Opinions vary on the Old Men. Some cook and eat the entire mushroom. Others just the cap with pores throwing away the stems, others just the cap throwing away the pores, and some not liking the texture dry the pore-less cap, powder it, and use it for flavoring. I like the cap with pores fried which is how I cooked the one at the top of the newsletter. To me they taste like Porcini mushroom. The only drawback is you find only one or two at a time.

One local trio of edible mushroom we are waiting for are called “Milk Caps.” When broken or scraped all three weep a liquid, often white. It is not a latex but is called that. The liquid, however, can also be light yellow or watery. That the mushroom is the weeping helps you identify the genus, sometimes the species. Common locally is the Lactifluus hygrophorides, L. corrugis, L. volemus var. volemus and L. luteolus. The latter is edible but smells strongly like a dead fish.  I picked some twelve pounds of them last year. They’re a substantial mushroom with a good flavor and texture. They are also fairly easy to identify. It has a ruddy cap, slightly felt-like to touch, wide-space gills, and bleeds a white fluid that does not stain the mushroom. 

Perhaps the most coveted wild mushroom locally is the Chanterelle. We have several species and sometimes they are difficult to sort out. That is not just in the field. The genus is, as they say, is under revision and the names are changing. Experts can’t agree exactly how many species there are and how many of them are found locally. It’s fairly easy to tell if one has a Chanterelle. It’s a bit more of a challenge to figure out which Chanterelle you have. I collected some 22 pounds of them last year. They are distinct enough in flavor and texture to hold their own in recipes. I like them sautéed with scrambled eggs.

Perhaps no ornamental was championed as much as the Pineapple Guava. However the perfect shrub for many places never really caught on. There could be several reasons for that. It probably didn’t help that a close relative, the Strawberry Guava, is a severe invasive species in some locations.  The shrub also does not get showy. It’s almost always drab. And while the blossoms are extroverted you have to hunt for them. While the entire blossom is edible most people only eat the petals. Five or six months from now they will be dark green fruit that stay green as they ripen. They just get softer. The shrub is easy to identify when in blossom. To read more about both guavas, go here.

Let us revisit what is blossoming this time of year: The Eastern Coral Bean. It is also sometimes called the Cherokee Bean. What is odd about this plant is the edible flowers produce toxic beans.  So we do not eat the red and black beans. A few of the red blossoms are edible raw but they are usually boiled then mixed with other foods notably scrambled eggs. When you cook the blossoms they turn light green. The distinctive shape of the leaves makes the shrub easy to identify. Young leaves are edible cooked but are marginal fare. Like the Pawpaws above they prefer dry, sunny places. A few raw red blossoms seem okay but if eaten in larger amounts they can be mind altering and approaching dangerous. Boiled they are fine. (Juice from the shrub’s stems, by the way, has been used to treat scorpion stings.)  You can read more about the Eastern Coral Bean here.

What’s the old saying? Close but no cigar. That might be the case with Foresteria segregata. Also called Florida Privet and Swamp Privet, you can find it anywhere from brackish waterways to an intentional ornamental in landscaping. The straight limbs were used for arrows and the blue berries possibly used for ink. I suspect the species has never worked its way into ethnobotanical literature because the berries taste bad. I’m not sure, however, if the story ends there. Yes, the berries are not considered edible. That said I have not found any references to toxicity but that might be because they are too foul to eat. However, it is in the Olive family and olives don’t taste good unless “cured.” What I wonder is 1) if the fruit are edible if 2) they are treated (meaning cured)  like olives?  It’s pure speculation on my part. They could be toxic for all I know. But it’s an idea.

Foraging classes: Saturday’s class is in my own backyard, so to speak, Orlando, Blanchard Park. The rain should be past but it might be a little chilly. Sunday’s class is in Eagle Park Lake in Largo, a site we haven’t visited for several months.

Saturday, April 20th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet next to the tennis courts by the YMCA building.

Sunday, April 21st, Eagle Park Lake, 1800 Keene Road, Largo, FL 33771. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the pavilion near the dog park. Arrive earlier than later as it is Easter and the park can fill fast.

Saturday, April 27th,  Red Bug Slough Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233.  9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the parking lot. 

Saturday, May 4th, Colby-Alderman Park: 1099 Massachusetts Street, Cassadaga. Fla. 32706. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet by the bathrooms. 

Sunday, May 5th: Ft. Meade Outdoor Recreation Area, 1639 Frostproof Highway, Fort Meade, FL 33841. (Frostproof Highway is also Route 98.)  9 a.m to noon. Meet at the brown bathrooms in the middle of the park which is due south from the highway. 

Saturday, May 11th,  Dreher Park, 1200 Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, 33405. 9 a.m to noon. Meet just north of the science center in the north section of the park. 

Sunday, May 12th, Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge, 2045 Mud Lake Road, DeLeon Springs, FL. 9 a.m. to noon. A few hundred feet after crossing the railroad tracks on Mudlake Road there in the parking lot on your right.  We meet there. This is a hike of approximately four miles, two out and back mostly native species, very few ornamentals. While the walking is easy we are exposed to the elements, sun on a clear day, wind on a cold day. Check the weather, dress appropriately. Bring water, wear suitable footwear. Know that as it is federal land it can be closed anytime for any reason without notice. 

Saturday, May 18th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246.  9 a.m. to noon. We will meet at building “D”  next to the administration parking lot.

Sunday, May 19th, Boulware Springs Park, 3420 SE 15th St.,  Gainesville, FL 32641. 9 a.m. to noon. Meet at the picnic tables next to the pump house.

For more information or to sign up for a class go here.

Foraging is more than identifying edible wild plants. It also involves knowing how to cook them, when they are prime to harvest, and subject of this review, where to find them. In real estate the mantra is “location, location, location.” We could use that with plants but a refinement would be “environment, environment, environment.”

We know not to look for swamp plants in a desert, unless there is an isolated spring there such as an oasis. Likewise, few cactus grow in swamps though there are exceptions. We also usually find salt tolerant plants near the shore or inland near salt licks (and sometimes along northern roads salted every winter.) But some of those salt-tolerant plants will grow in your garden and do not need to be in a salty environment. Sea Purslane is found on the shore or near brackish water where its job is to build soil by forcing the wind to slow down and drop sand. But, it will also grow in your garden, no salt or wind needed. Other plants are more picky and won’t grow well if not in their preferred location.

For example, one species I am long-familiar with is Blueberries. They like soil on the acidic side, a pH below 7 on a 14-point scale. I grew up in poor-soil Maine where one could find 120-acre fields of nothing but Blueberries. Yet where I live in Florida Blueberries are found in small colonies in isolated pockets. Why? One answer is Florida is a limestone plate (alkaline not acidic) so it is a waste of time to look for Blueberries unless there are acid-producing pines, oaks or perhaps cypress nearby. I planted Blueberries specifically bred for Florida but one has to amend the soil — the amount of acid — nearly as much as one has to work daily to keep a pool from turning green. They eventually died, one of my few failures.

Another example is Dandelions. I have observed for several decades that Dandelions don’t like Florida, or at least the areas of Florida I visit. They like acidic soil. It might be it is not Florida’s heat they don’t like but rather the alkaline (“sweet”) soil. The few places I have seen Dandelions growing have been areas of acidic soil again near pines and often oaks. Dreher Park in West Palm Beach is a good example. What Dandelions there are there can be found growing in lawn grass amongst oaks. While I have also found Dandelions year round they tend to favor the winter months such as November through February.

Some plants can do well in nearly any soil. Henbit, Dead Nettle and Shepard’s Purse are good examples. However, a close relative of Shepard’s Purse, Poor Man’s Pepper Grass, likes soil on the alkaline side. This means you probably won’t find Pepper Grass near Pines and Oaks. Plants that like acidic soil (below a pH of 7.0) that you can find near Oaks and Pines include Eastern Bracken Fern, Curly Dock, Mullein, Nettles, Violets, Pineapple Weed, Plantagos, Wild Radish, Sheep Sorrel, Sow Thistle, and wild Strawberries. Plants that like it on the “sweet” or alkaline side besides Pepper Grass? Wild Carrots, Lamb’s Quarters, Amaranth, Pokeweed, White Mustard, and Purslane. Don’t look for those in an oak scrub or with a lot pines around.

Besides the pH of soil the kind of soil can make a difference. Chicory likes “heavy” soil meaning lots of clay, or rocks. Also liking heavy soil is Broadleaf Dock, Daisies, Milkweed, Plantains, true Thistles, and Wild Garlic. Plants that can endure hard packed soil include Field Mustard, Morning Glories — some of which are edible — and Pineapple Weed (it used to grow in our gravel driveway.) Going the other directions, plants that like sandy soil include Goldenrods, Sandspurs , Horsemint, and Spurge Nettle. Plants too look for in agricultural soil include chickweed, Dandelions, Lambs Quarters, Plantains, Amaranth and Purslane. And while Florida Betony can grow edible roots in rich loam or sand it tends to grow larger and easier to harvest roots in sand.

By their very presence some plants can tell you about what’s in or not in the soil. Burdock likes soil very high in iron and sulfate but low in calcium and manganese. Chickweed and Dandelions like low-calcium low-phosphorus soils. Crabgrass likes very low levels of calcium, phosphorus but high levels of chlorine, magnesium and potassium. Oxalis and Hop Cover, however, prefer low levels of calcium but high levels of magnesium. Purslane and Mustard like high phosphorus levels.

If you see a healthy patch of White Clover you know the soil is lacking in nitrogen. Or said another way, you won’t find happy White Clover in nitrogen-rich soil. I suspect that holds true for other members of the pea family as well. Because of preferences you will usually not find amaranth and clover growing together. Red Clover, however, prefers to grow in areas of soil high in potassium. Wild Garlic also likes high potassium as well along with chlorine, magnesium, and sodium.

All My Videos are available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for this newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each for a total of 135 videos.  Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. The DVDs make a good gift for that forager you know especially as spring is … springing. Individual DVDs can also be ordered or you can pick and choose. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right hand side of this page (if your window is open wide enough.)  Or you can go here.

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations around the world share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. One special section is “From the Frightening Mail Bag” where we learn from people who eat first then ask questions later. You can join the forum by clicking on “forum” in the menu.

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com have gone well. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link, the PayPal donation link or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794.

This is weekly issue 351.  

Pineapple Guava blossoms are edible and peppery. Photo by Green Deane

Perhaps no ornamental was championed as much as the Pineapple Guava. However the perfect shrub for many places never really caught on. There could be several reasons. It probably didn’t help that a close relative, the Strawberry Guava, is a severe invasive species in some locations.  The shrub also does not get showy. You have to hunt for the extroverted blossoms. While the entire blossom is edible most people only eat the petals. Five or six months from now they will be dark green fruit that stay green as they ripen. They just get softer. The shrub is easy to identify when in blossom. To read more about both guavas, go here.

Surinam Cherries, which are not really cherries, can have a wide fruiting period. So far this season I have found shrubs with tiny green fruit to a large tree-shaped specimen already dropping ripe fruit. I think the latter has jumped the season significantly.  There are two varieties, black fruited and deep red fruited. Surinam Cherries taste awful until totally ripe. Even then many folks do not like the flavor. Your pallet will either say this is food or this is not. No in betweens. Seriously. You either will eat them again or never again. But if you are going to eat them make sure they are very ripe. In the black/dark purple variety they are indeed black when totally ripe. With the red-fruiting variety you want a deep fire-truck red (with blue tones) not an orange Ferrari red.  To read more about Surinam Cherries go here.

Pawpaws are easy to spot now.

Once you’re done reading this newsletter turn off the computer and go find some Pawpaws. Now is the time locally to identify one of the more common species we have. The photo to the left is from a pasture in Volusia County near Gemini Springs. There are hundreds of Pawpaw blossoming there now and all along the bike trail through the area (as well as true thistles and Maypops.) In a few months there will be a lot of fruit here if the woodland creatures don’t get to them first. It is, after all, their grocery store. We have Pawpaws with cream-colored blossoms and some dwarf versions with purple blossoms. While you can find them in nearly any dry location pastures are a good place to look because pastures are easy to find and livestock tend to not eat them.  This is one species you can also find while driving. Just look for five-foot shrubs with cream-colored blossoms as you go by. You will see Pawpaws. To read more about Pawpaws go here.

Humming birds like the Eastern Coral Bean

Also blossoming this time of year is the Eastern Coral Bean, sometimes called the Cherokee Bean. What is odd about this plant is the edible flowers produce toxic beans.  So we do not eat the red and black beans. A few of the red blossoms are edible raw — with precautions — but they are usually boiled then mixed with other foods notably scrambled eggs. When you cook the blossoms they turn light green. The distinctive shape of the leaves makes the shrub easy to identify. Young leaves are edible cooked but are marginal fare. Like the Pawpaws above they prefer dry, sunny places. A few raw red blossoms seem okay but if eaten in larger amounts they can be mind altering and approaching dangerous. Boiled they are fine. (Juice from the shrub’s stems, by the way, has been used to treat scorpion stings.)  You can read more about the Eastern Coral Bean here.

Partridgeberry. Photo by Green Deane

In the Carolinas in August I see a lot of Partridgeberries, also called Twin Berries because the separate blossoms fuse into one berry. They are edible but mild. That said  partridgeberries are attractive with striking red berries and deep green leaves. They  are not extroverted but if you see them the little fruit are attractive. I have seen them Gainesville and Wekiva State Park just north of Orlando. According to the USDA chart the species is not in the county but U.S.D.A. maps are often quite out of date. Seasonally Florida and the mountains of North Carolina are — as far as the Partridgeberries are concerned — about five months apart. As with the Carolinas these were spotted in damp but not inundated soil. You can read more about them here. 

Foresteria segregata

Odds and ends of the weekend: What’s the old saying? Close but no cigar. This weekend I saw two plants, one I had never seen and one I had not seen in many years. The latter was Foresteria segregata, in Largo, Florida. Also called Florida Privet and Swamp Privet, you can find it anywhere from brackish waterways to an intentional ornamental in landscaping. The straight limbs were used for arrows and the blue berries possibly used for ink. I suspect the species has never worked its way into ethnobotanical literature because the berries taste bad. I’m not sure, however, if the story ends there. Yes, the berries are not considered edible. That said I have not found any references to toxicity but that might be because they are too foul to eat. However, it is in the Olive family and olives don’t taste good unless “cured.” What I wonder is 1) if the fruit are edible if 2) they are treated (meaning cured)  like olives?  It’s pure speculation on my part. They could be toxic for all I know. But it’s an idea.

Rumex paraguayensis 

The other plant looked like a “dock” to me, also called Rumex. There’s about a dozen and a half Rumex in North America, many of them native while several imported. Merritt Fernald, who was the main botany Ph.D. at Harvard for half a century, said they were all edible but most of them bitter. We have several locally: R. hastatulus and R. acetosella are tart, the latter not native. R. verticillatus, the Swamp Dock, is also commonly seen and bitter. Two other introduced species locally — and in the rest of North America — are Rumex obtusifolius and Rumex Crispus, the latter also know as edible Curly Dock.  The “dock” we saw in Cassadaga, Fl, didn’t seem to be any of those. Because there were a lot of small leaves on the flower spike it could be R. paraguayensis, which is reported in the state but in limited locations. If it is R. paraguayensis is it edible? That took a bit of digging. I found an article called “Wild Food Plants and Fungi Used By The Polish Community in Misiones, Argentia” published in the Journal of Human Ecology, December 2015.  The fifth entry on Table One says R. paraguayensis leaves were eaten raw in salads and cooked in soups. It was also not listed as a famine food. You can read the full article here.

And another reminder that loquats are in full fruit now and wild garlic is in season. In fact at our Largo class were were taken to a wild garlic location. Thanks Carolyn! Oh yes, in last week’s top photo the edibles were Dandelions, Oxalis, Commelina, and False Hawk’s Beard. There’s also a young nightshade that if allowed to grow probably would have been Solanum americanum.  I say been because the lawn has since been mowed. 

Green Deane Forum

Want to identify a plant? Looking for a foraging reference? Do you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object you want identified? On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations around the world share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are also articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. One special section is “From the Frightening Mail Bag” where we learn from people’s mistakes. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

Green Deane DVD Set

Spring orders have started their annual  increase. All of Green Dane’s videos available for free on You Tube. They do have ads on them so every time you watch a Green Deane video I get a quarter of one cent. Four views, one cent. Not exactly a large money-maker but it helps pays for this newsletter. If you want to see the videos without ads and some in slightly better quality you can order the DVD set. It is nine DVDs with 15 videos on each.  Many people want their own copy of the videos or they have a slow service and its easier to order then to watch them on-line. They make a good gift for that forager you know. Individual DVDs can also be ordered. You can order them by clicking on the button on the top right of this page or you can go here.

Classes are held rain or shine or cold.

Foraging Classes: Foraging classes this week range from mid-state in Orlando to the southwest side and Sarasota. While some winter plants remain the spring edible are making their seasonal run so there’s plenty to see and taste.

Saturday, April 14th, Blanchard Park, 10501 Jay Blanchard Trail, Orlando, FL 32817. 9 a.m. Meet at the pavilion east of the tennis courts near the YMCA.

Sunday, April 15th, Red Bug Slough Preserve, 5200 Beneva Road, Sarasota, FL, 34233, 9 a.m. 

Saturday, April 22nd, Spruce Creek, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, 32127, 9 a.m., meet at the pavilion. 

Saturday, May 5th, Florida State College,  south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd.,  Jacksonville, 32246.  9 a.m. We will meet at building “D”  next to the administration parking lot.

 To read more about the classes or to pre-pay go here. 

Donations to upgrade EatTheWeeds.com and fund a book are going well and has made the half way mark. Thank you to all who have contributed to either via the Go Fund Me link, the PayPal donation link or by writing to Green Deane POB 941793 Maitland FL, 32794.  Recent upgrades have been paid now the Forum needs work and several function problems need to be fixed specifically the search and categories.  A new server also being considered.  The other issue is finding  an indexing program or function for a real book. Writing programs used to do it automatically if you designated a term for indexing. Now that most books are ebooks most writing programs do not provide and indexing function. 

Foraging is more than identifying edible wild plants. It also involves knowing how to cook them, when they are prime to harvest, and subject of this review, where to find them. In real estate the mantra is “location, location, location.” We could use that with plants but a refinement would be “environment, environment, environment.”

Sea Purslane tolerates salty ground.

We know not to look for swamp plants in a desert, unless there is an isolated spring there such as an oasis. Likewise, few cactus grow in swamps though there are exceptions. We also usually find salt tolerant plants near the shore or inland near salt licks (and sometimes along northern roads salted every winter.) But some of those salt-tolerant plants will grow in your garden and do not need to be in a salty environment. Sea Purslane is found on the shore or near brackish water where its job is to build soil by forcing the wind to slow down and drop sand. But, it will also grow in your garden, no salt or wind needed. Other plants are more picky and won’t grow well if not in their preferred location.

Blueberries, Roan Mt. North Carolina.

For example, one species I am long-familiar with is Blueberries. They like soil on the acidic side, a pH below 7 on a 14-point scale. I grew up in poor-soil Maine where one could find 120-acre fields of nothing but Blueberries. Yet where I live now, in Florida, Blueberries are found in small colonies in isolated pockets. Why? One answer is Florida is a limestone plate (alkaline not acidic) so it is a waste of time to look for Blueberries unless there are acid-producing pines, oaks or perhaps cypress nearby. I planted Blueberries specifically bred for Florida but one has to amend the soil — the amount of acid — nearly as much as one has to work daily to keep a pool from turning green. They eventually died, one of my few failures.

Dandelions like acidic soil.

Another example is Dandelions. I have observed for several decades that Dandelions don’t like Florida, or at least the areas of Florida I visit. They like acidic soil. It might be it is not Florida’s heat they don’t like but rather the alkaline (“sweet”) soil. The few places I have seen Dandelions growing have been areas of acidic soil again near pines and often oaks. Dreher Park in West Palm Beach is a good example. What Dandelions there are there can be found growing in lawn grass amongst oaks. While I have also found Dandelions around the year they tend to favor the winter months such as November through February. With environment in mind let’s survey some plants and what soils and conditions they like. 

Henbit, one of the few “sweet” springtime greens. Photo by Green Deane

Some plants can do well in nearly any soil. Henbit, Dead Nettle and Shepard’s Purse are good examples. However, a close relative of Shepard’s Purse, Poor Man’s Pepper Grass, likes soil on the alkaline side. This means you probably won’t find Pepper Grass near Pines and Oaks. Plants that like acidic soil (below a pH of 7.0) that you can find near Oaks and Pines include Eastern Bracken Fern, Curly Dock, Mullein, Nettles, Violets, Pineapple Weed, Plantagos, Wild Radish, Sheep Sorrel, Sow Thistle, and wild Strawberries. Plants that like it on the “sweet” or alkaline side besides Pepper Grass? Wild Carrots, Lamb’s Quarters, Amaranth, Pokeweed, White Mustard, and Purslane. Don’t look for those in an oak scrub or with a lot pines around.

Wild Garlic likes thick soil.

Besides the pH of soil the kind of soil can make a difference. Chicory likes “heavy” soil meaning lots of clay, or rocks. Also liking heavy soil is Broadleaf Dock, Daisies, Milkweed, Plantains, true Thistles, and Wild Garlic. Plants that can endure hard packed soil include Field Mustard, Morning Glories — some of which are edible — and Pineapple Weed (it used to grow in our gravel driveway.) Going the other directions, plants that like sandy soil include Goldenrods, Sandspurs and Spurge Nettle. Plants too look for in agricultural soil include chickweed, Dandelions, Lambs Quarters, Plantains, Amaranth and Purslane. And while Florida Betony can grow edible roots in rich loam or sand it tends to grow larger and easier to harvest roots in sand.

Crab Grass likes low calcium soil.

By their very presence some plants can tell you about what’s in or not in the soil. Burdock likes soil very high in iron and sulfate but low in calcium and manganese. Chickweed and Dandelions like low-calcium low-phosphorus soils. Crabgrass likes very low levels of calcium, phosphorus but high levels of chlorine, magnesium and potassium. Oxalis and Hop Cover, however, prefer low levels of calcium but high levels of magnesium. Purslane and Mustard like high phosphorus levels.

Clover prefers low nitrogen soil.

If you see a healthy patch of White Clover you know the soil is lacking in nitrogen. Or said another way, you won’t find happy White Clover in nitrogen-rich soil. I suspect that holds true for other members of the pea family as well. Because of preferences you will usually not find amaranth and clover growing together. Red Clover, however, prefers to grow in areas of soil high in potassium. Wild Garlic also likes high potassium as well along with chlorine, magnesium, and sodium.

This is weekly issue 299.  

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The blossoms of the Pineapple Guava have edible petals. Photo by Green Deane

Perhaps no ornamental was championed as much as the Pineapple Guava. However the perfect shrub for many places never really caught on. There could be many reasons. It probably didn’t help that a close relative, the Strawberry Guava, is a severe invasive species in some locations.  The shrub also does not get showy. You even have to look for the showy blossoms. While the entire blossom is edible most people only eat the petals. Five or six months from now they will be dark green fruit that never change color as they ripen. They just get softer. The shrub is easy to identify when in blossom. To read more about both guavas, go here.

Tallow Plum, a semi-parasitic edible. Photo by Green Deane

The learning never stops. There is a local semi-parasitic plum, the Tallow Plum or Hog Plum (there are so many “hog” plums we might as well stay with Tallow Plum.”)  When bright yellow ripe the plums are tangy but rather sparse. Over the years I have found them three times, all on the east coast of Florida, in the fall, all in hot, sandy places. These were on the south side of Haulover Canal, just north of the space center, at the Enchanted Forest, a park in Titusville, FL, directly west of the space center, and about 120 farther south near Port St. Lucie in the George LeStrange Preserve. All east coast, all in the fall, all in dry, sandy environments, commonly called scrub. Two times there were very low-growing and the third not tall at all.

Tallow Plums often look more like vines than shrubs. Photo by Green Deane

This Saturday past I had a foraging class in Redbug Sough in Sarasota. It’s coastal but fresh water damp, lots of shade. During the class a student asked “what this?” It was a yellow green fruit with a large stone inside. As in the article below, location is so important to identification. I was flummoxed for a few moments until I thought of Tallow Plum, and a subsequent check showed that’s what it was and that it does grow in that area of the state. I had to expand the descriptors. Hot, sandy, east coast, fall had to change though I suspect the fruit was a fall left over. But now I know where there is one on the west coast, in a humid, shady area. To read more about the Tallow Plum, go here.

Foraging is more than identifying edible wild plants. It also involves knowing how to cook them, when they are prime to harvest, and subject of this review, where to find them. In real estate the mantra is “location, location, location.” We could use that with plants but a refinement would be “environment, environment, environment.”

Sea Purslane(red stems)  easily transplant. Photo by Green Deane

We know not to look for swamp plants in a desert, unless there is an isolated spring there such as an oasis. Likewise, few cactus grow in swamps though there are exceptions. We also usually find salt tolerant plants near the shore or inland near salt licks (and sometimes along northern roads salted every winter.) But some of those salt-tolerant plants will grow in your garden and do not need to be in a salty environment. Sea Purslane is found on the shore or near brackish water where its job is to build soil by forcing the wind to slow down and drop sand. But, it will also grow in your garden, no salt or wind needed. Other plants are more picky and won’t grow well if not in their preferred location.

Blueberries are extremely soil pick. Photo by Green Deane

For example, one species I am long-familiar with is Blueberries. They like soil on the acidic soil, a pH below 7 on a 14-point scale. I grew-up in poor-soil Maine where one could find 120-acre fields of nothing but Blueberries. Yet where I live now, in Florida, Blueberries are found in small colonies in isolated pockets. Why? One answer is Florida is a limestone plate (alkaline not acidic) so it is a waste of time to look for Blueberries unless there are acid-producing pines, oaks or perhaps cypress nearby. I planted Blueberries specifically bred for Florida but one has to tend to the soil — the amount of acid — nearly as much as one has to work daily to keep a pool from turning green. They eventually died, one of my few failures.

Dandelions like acidic soil. Photo by Green Deane

Another example is Dandelions. I have observed for several decades that Dandelions don’t like Florida, or at least the areas of Florida I visit. They like acidic soil. It might be it is not Florida’s heat they don’t like but rather the alkaline (“sweet”) soil. The few places I have seen Dandelions growing have been areas of acidic soil. Dreher Park in West Palm Beach is a good example. What Dandelions there are there can be found growing in lawn grass amongst oaks. With that in mind let’s survey some plants and what soils and conditions they like.

Pokeweed does not like to grow near oaks. Photo by Green Deane

Some plants can do well in nearly any soil. Henbit, Dead Nettle and Shepard’s Purse are good examples. However, the close relative of Shepard’s Purse, Poor Man’s Pepper Grass, likes soil on the alkaline side. This means you probably won’t find Pepper Grass near Pines and Oaks. Plants that like acidic soil (below a pH of 7.0) and you can find near Oaks and Pines include Eastern Bracken Fern, Curly Dock, Mullein, Nettles, Violets, Pineapple Weed, Plantagos, Wild Radish, Sheep Sorrel, Sow Thistle, and wild Strawberries. Plants that like it on the “sweet” or alkaline side besides Pepper Grass? Wild Carrots, Lamb’s Quarters, Amaranth, Pokeweed, White Mustard, and Purslane. Don’t look for those in an oak scrub.

Wild Garlic likes heavy soil and low bacterial count. Photo by Green Deane

Besides the pH of soil the kind of soil can make a difference. Chicory likes “heavy” soil meaning lots of clay, or rocks. Also liking heavy soil is Broadleaf Dock, Daisies, Milkweed, Plantains, true Thistles, and Wild Garlic. Plants that can endure hard packed soil include Field Mustard, Morning Glories — some of which are edible — and Pineapple Weed (it used to grow in our gravel driveway.) Going the other directions, plants that like sandy soil include Goldenrods and Sandspurs. Plants too look for in agricultural soil include chickweed, Dandelions, Lambs Quarters, Plantains, Amaranth and Purslane. And while Florida Betony can grow edible roots in rich loam or sand it tends to grow larger and easier to harvest roots in sand.

Oxalises like soil high in magnesium. Photo by Green Deane

By their very presence some plants can tell you about what’s in or not in the soil. Burdock likes soil very high in iron and sulfate but low in calcium and manganese. Chickweed and Dandelions like low-calcium low-phosphorus soils. Crabgrass likes very low levels of calcium, phosphorus but high levels of chlorine, magnesium and potassium. Oxalis and Hop Cover, however, prefer low levels of calcium but high levels of magnesium. Purslane and Mustard like high phosphorus levels.

Red Clover like soil high in potassium. Photo by Green Deane

If you see a healthy patch of White Clover you know the soil is lacking in nitrogen. Or said another way, you won’t find happy White Clover in nitrogen-rich soil. I suspect that holds true for other members of the pea family as well. Because of preferences you will usually not find amaranth and clover growing together. Red Clover, however, prefers to grow in areas of soil high in potassium. Wild Garlic also likes high potassium as well along with high leaves of chlorine, magnesium, and sodium.

Knowing where to look can increase your chances of finding and identifying wild edibles.

Green Deane teaching on a cool, foggy morning. Photo by Kelly Fagan.

My upcoming foraging Classes:

Saturday, April 18th, Spruce Creek Park, 6250 Ridgewood Ave. Port Orange, FL, 32127, 9 a.m.

Sunday, April 19th, Florida State College, south campus, 11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville, FL, 32246, 9 a.m.

Saturday, May 2nd, George LeStrange Preserve, 4911 Ralls Road, Fort Pierce, FL, 34981. 9 a.m.

Sunday, May 3rd, Mead Garden, 1500 S. Denning Dr., Winter Park, FL 32789. 9 a.m.

To learn more about the foraging classes go here.

Reindeer moss, one of the topics of discussion on the Green Deane Forum. Photo by Green Deane

Need to know a wild tea? Looking for a foraging reference? Maybe you have a UFO, an Unidentified Flowering Object, you want identified. On the Green Deane Forum we chat about foraging all year long. And it’s not just about warm-weather plants or just North American flora. Many nations share common weeds so there’s a lot to talk about. There’s also more than weeds. The reference section has information for foraging around the world. There are articles on food preservation, and forgotten skills from making bows to fermenting food. Recent topics include: Top Restaurant Serves Deer Moss, Uvularia sessilifolia? Where Have You Found Currants? Purple flowering plant ID, Bee Swarms, To Cook is Human, Can I get Some Suggestions, Making Butter, Heliculture, Tincture? What Kind of Weeds? Sassafras, Cherry Bark Tea, Biting Bugs, Firebow Tinder, Sheep Sorrel, Brown Bear and Greens, Homemade Sauerkraut, Coconut Oil, and What Do You See #22. You can join the forum by clicking on the button on the upper right hand side of this page.

What do you see #23. In this photo there are four edible species and one deadly species. Photo by Green Deane.

A frozen cranberry, blueberry’s wet cousin, is still tart and tasty.

The thermometer was near zero one day when I was on ice skates collecting frozen cranberries.

Bonfires and hot beverage make skating fun

The cranberries were conveniently above the ice just waiting to be harvested. I was on the north end of “Gowen’s Pond” in Pownal, Maine. It was at that end where water seeped into the pond to make the couple of acres we skated on every winter. It was also there where I once went skating at 52 below zero… the things you do when you’re a kid and there’s a huge bonfire going. I got chilblained hands and feet that night. More than forty years later air conditioning still makes my hands and feet itch.  (Yes, I now live in Florida and no, I do not have air conditioning.)

The water on that end of the pond wasn’t deep but it was moving so the ice could be shallow. Locals told a story about the farm next door that lost a cow through that ice one winter. I never did ask why the cow was out on the ice to start with. Maybe hungry and looking for cranberries.

Many turtles stay active under the ice.

The pond had one little island. Very little. One person couldn’t stand on it… more like a stump. But it was always above the ice and had a bush on it. As I skated past it I saw a movement. It was a turtle swimming under the ice eating a little greenery from around the island. ‘Cranberries and turtle,’ I thought. Actually that turtle was spared but it did make me realize early on that one can forage in winter if you know where to look.

Of course, the real issue is what kind of winter? That can range from deep snow and rock-hard frozen ground to only occasional cool days. Finding wild food where there is no snow and little or no freezing is not difficult. It’s finding food in gawd-awful winters that is a challenge.

I am fond of saying food is where the water is. Whether you are referring to your yard, your county, state, region or country, the farther away from water you are the farther away from food you are. While that is true all year perhaps it is most critical in winter. Plants and creatures can be found near water in the winter.

Ice huts are portable man caves.

Everyone is familiar with or knows about ice fishing. In some northern areas it is not only a passion but a rite of passage. It can certainly put food on the table (as can hunting and trapping.)  But not everyone has an ice hut or other equipment to harvest food that can move. In that case look for shallow, open streams or with ice than can be easily broken They have fresh water clams in the shallows. They don’t move too fast. As a young man I fished the Royal River in southern Maine and was always bringing home the clams I found. They are a bit tougher than those from the bay and occasionally one would yield a black pearl. I usually had a well-deserving lass to give it to.

Freshwater clams are tougher than saltwater clams

Freshwater clams have to be handle carefully and cooked thoroughly but they are a good basis for a winter chowder. (The clams pick up parasites from land animal droppings requiring careful handling and cooking. Some clams are also federally protected so I’m sure you’ll check with local laws first.) Depending upon your stream or shallow pond you can also find crayfish and frogs (and turtles.) I should add that one of the advantage of aquatic turtles is that they do not eat toxic mushrooms. There is one instance where a person was sickened from eating a land turtle that had eaten mushrooms not toxic to it but toxic to humans.

Cattail shoots are edible raw or cooked.

Open streams  or those with little ice can also produce cattail shoots and roots in winter. The shoots look like large dog’s teeth coming off the main root (actually horizontal rhizomes.) You can snap them off  — and the end shoot — eating them raw or toss them into the clam chowder. The roots are also full of starch. Getting it out is labor intensive and I think overrated as a flour. However a more calorie positive way is just toss the roots on a fire. That burns off the covering and the muck they’re usually in. That also cooks the starch in the fibrous middle. Then you open up the root and pull the fibers through your teeth to get the cooked starch off. It tastes like chestnuts, and there are no pots to clean.

Groundnuts grow in a string in damp areas.

Also available stream side in winter are duck potatoes and groundnuts, the latter a good source of starch and protein. Duck potatoes grow deeper than groundnuts so they probably won’t be in any frozen banks but you do have to fish through cold water. Groundnuts are closer to the surface but still should be below the frost line or protected by water.  That’s a toss up. The good thing about groundnuts is they are unmistakable. Nothing else looks like them. While stream side also look for watercress, a plant that likes cold water. It’s a peppery member of the mustard family. Often found in winter streams, it can be a flavoring and/or a green to put into that clam chowder.

Mussels were prime kid food when foraging 50 years ago.

If you live near the ocean there’s a lot of food available in winter. The natives used to say that when the tide was out dinner was on. Not only are there a wide variety of creatures to be had but sea weed as well. Most seaweed in northern climates is edible except for one variety in the pacific northwest that has sulfuric acid. If you mistakenly bite into Desmarestia ligulata you will know it. The problem with seaweed is most of it is not tasty but semi-drying and frying can help. If the weather is not too cold edibles can also be found hiding in the seaweed or on the rocks, such as crabs. One of the more odd things is that 50 years ago mussel at low tide were ignored except by us hungry latchkey kids. Now they are gourmet fare.

Chickweed thrives in cold weather.

Depending on how cold and how much snow there are quite a few other edibles possible in winter.  Sorrel can often last through a mild winter. Some radishes and wild mustards can take quite a freeze and stay alive and green as can any cabbage left over in your garden. Oyster mushrooms can be found anytime of the year even after warm weather has past. They don’t take freezing, however. Dandelions can survive the winter in snow but they undergo some chemical changes that make them more a famine food than a tasty find. Hardy little chickweed can germinate under snow so when the spring melt comes it is among the first green plants. Wild garlic and garlic mustard can can also be found in winter especially on south facing hills with little or no snow (so can some of the little mustards.)  If there been no snow plantagos (plantains) can also be found in winter along with clover.  But you have to be careful with clover. It can be a blood thinner. In some areas  Stork’s Bill, (Alfilaria) is edible in winter. Just as a matter of routine south facing hills are always worth investigating for edibles particularly in the winter. Don’t forget to (carefully) roll over logs to find wintering lizards and or snakes. Colorful salamanders usually are NOT on the menu.

Cheery red and green makes Wintergreen easy to spot.

Just as I collected frozen cranberries don’t forget to look for rose hips, dried grapes and frozen wild apples (which are often better after freezing and cooking.) Hawthorn berries can persist into the winter as can persimmons,  mountain ash, wild plums (sloes) various edible Viburnum berries and Rumex seeds still on the stalk.  Partridgeberries are a common winter find as is wintergreen, which has edible berries and leaves for tea.  Where I grew up I always found wintergreen with berries in the spring snow. It was years before I learned the berries over wintered. The little plant is also medicinal. Most persistent grass seeds are also edible. There are no toxic native North American grasses.

Birches offer several edibles.

Finding Burdock in Winter is Easy

There are more winter edibles but much depends upon the conditions. Acorns can be food but if they are covered with snow that doesn’t help much, and they will be frozen, and they need to be shelled, and they need to be leached and… well, you get the idea: Labor intensive in the best of times. The long skinny  Burdock Root is edible but if the ground is frozen it can be a challenge to dig up as are Jerusalem Artichokes. Thistles, the kind that produces a large basal rosette with thorns that prick you like needles, also have an edible root raw or cooked. But the issue is whether the edible is buried in snow, and or is the ground granite hard?

In northern climates juniper berries can be used for flavoring… but not in the clam chowder. Juniper berries are used for bigger, gamey game… Elk and Moose come to mind…

A dandelion blossom is a bee’s gas station

Dandelions and I go back a long ways, some 62 years.

When I was young in Maine my mother would hand me a knife and a paper bag and send me out to find dandelions for supper, not only in your yard but in the pasture across the street. My step-father liked the bitter green so I picked them often. What is most interesting to me about collecting them is how things have changed since then.

First, it was a big sharp knife. How many mother’s trust their six-year olds with large, sharp knives now? Then I left the immediate area and went wandering around country fields alone. Those two things by themselves are now worth social services intervention, a trespassing charge, probably counseling, drug therapy and several local newspaper articles about the potential of child kidnapping. Then again, I was armed with a knife and always came home with a bagful of dandelions which brings up another point: The fields were not polluted and an abundance of wild edibles grew there. In fact, wild strawberries and checkerberries (wintergreen) grew in the same places in the spring. Heck, I was full of dessert before I came home for supper. There was also a large Hawthorn tree with three-inch thorns and edible fruit. I remember noticing how different species of birds liked to nest there. I inferred the thorns dissuaded would-be predators except perhaps for tree-climbing snakes.

Leaves point away from the base

One year, when I was round 15, I made dandelion wine (after I had made two batches of beer with cooking malt, potatoes, and soft bread yeast.)  Bottled in returnable Cocoa-cola bottles tt was “dry” and perhaps an acquired taste but it went down easily enough and had a suitable kick. I remember a neighbor, one Mr. Bill Gowan, who dropped by one night, and downed a considerable amount, saying “that’s pretty good stuff” each time a new bottle was opened. Good thing he was walking. Dandelion wine is not living off the land but through dandelions I developed a kinship with plants as pets can help one have a kinship with animals.

What can be said here about dandelions that hasn’t been said in many other places? Well, how about they are pretty and free and on a windy day spreading their seeds is a fun moment whether child or not… Okay, okay… think of them as free chicory or escarole for your salad, a coffee substitute, wine flavoring, batter-dipped blossoms… a diuretic… Dandelion roots were eaten by man as long as 25,000 years ago. They were either hungry or liked the bitter flavor.

Classic powder puff

Dandelions also have a modern secret. You no doubt have seen “drones” proliferating the skies. In the future you might see miniature flying craft shaped like Dandelion fluff or maybe even large wind generators. It turns out that Dandelion fluff is aeronautically gifted.  Each seed is attached to a tiny parasol that is comprised of fine bristles. Those bristles deflect the wind and create a vortex that induces lift. And you thought they were just passively floating around…

A native of Europe and Asia, the name of “Dandelion” in English came from the French, dent de lion, or “tooth of the lion” referring to the toothed leaves. Dandelion’s other names are related to keeping the urinary system functioning, which a 1994 study demonstrated.  The French also called it pissenlit which lent itself to the English common name of Pissabed.

The botanical name is Taraxacum officinale (tar-AX-a-kum oh-fis-in-AY-lee.)  Officianle means it was sold in state-designated Roman shops for food or medicine, now days the word is used for plants that had or have medicinal applications. As for Taraxacum, it has two possibilities. One is a name traceable through Arabic to the Persian word “tarashqum“, meaning ‘bitter herb.’  But since Latin is essentially a combination of hijacked Etruscan and bastardized Greek, it could also come from the Greek word “taraxi” to disturb, referring to its ability to get the water flowing again. That is in contrast with the latex sap of the Dandelion, which can be used as a glue, right from the stem. Modern Greeks call it Radiki (rah-DEE-kee) the same word the use for chicory.

And to stretch the vocabulary a little, Dandelions are also known as “ruderals.” That means they are among the first plants to shoot up after the ground has been disturbed. Of course, that’s up north. Here in Florida the delicate poke weed is the master ruderal. But that does bring up a point: Dandelions grow in Florida but they aren’t too common. They like cool weather and acidic soil. Florida is a hot limestone plate. Look for Dandelions near oaks and pines in cooler weather.

As for using Dandelions there are two recipes immediately below and then many more at the bottom of the page thanks to Rose Barlow. These recipes are for using only the yellow part of the flower, no green at all. All green pars are bitter.

 Dandelion Wine

* 3 qts dandelion flowers

* 1 lb golden raisins

* 1 gallon water

* 3 lbs granulated sugar

* 2 lemons

* 1 orange

* yeast and nutrient

Pick fresh flowers, trim of stalk, if extra careful trim off all green.  Put flowers in a large bowl. Set aside one pint of water,  bring the rest of a gallon to a boil. Pour the boiling water over the dandelion flowers and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Leave for two days, stirring twice daily. Pour flowers and water in large pot and bring to a low boil. Add sugar and the peeling of the citrus (peel thinly and avoid any white pith.). Low boil for one hour, pour into fermenter. Add the juice and pulp of the citrus. Allow to cool. Add yeast and yeast nutrient, cover, and put in a warm place for three days. Strain and pour into secondary fermenter. Add raisins and fit fermentation lock. Strain and rack after wine clears, adding water to top up. Leave until fermentation stops completely, rack again. Two months later rack and bottle. Age six months to a year.

Caesar Weed’s most edible part, the blossom

Urena Lobata: Cash crop to noxious weed

Once it was an invited money-maker, now it is a hunted money spender: Caesar weed, cash crop to noxious weed.

We have often discussed what is a weed, and what is a noxious weed. Many “weeds” were food for previous generations, and some noxious weeds were valuable plants until technology moved on. Such is the story of the Caesar Weed.

Caesar Weed, Urena lobata, is in the mallow family and was imported to Florida for cordage a little prior to 1882, which makes sense; its cousin is cotton. Caesar weed is a good substitute for flax and jute and was at one time an important crop, still is in Brazil where it is called Armina Guaxima or Armania fiber.  It’s also called Congo Jute. Now it‘s a “noxious weed” in Florida because it is not used anymore and spreads easily. While it grows  happily river side it can grow on dry land with enough rain.

If you remember, the foraging phrase is all mallows are edible in some way, except the cotton (it’s oil is edible after processing.) The Caesar Weed is one of those mallows on the cusp of edible/not edible. As a food, Caesar weed is not high on the list. It is a “famine food” in Africa. When you eat it the main issue is not taste but texture. It’s not like eating sandpaper but it’s heading in that direction… tender sandpaper perhaps. The leaves are best boiled as are the calyces. After eating it can make some feel queezy. The seeds have polyunsaturated oil and are used as a cereal and in the production of soap (as is the oil of its cousin, cotton.)  Young sprouts are edible as micro-greens. While Caesar Weed is low on the food list it has a saving grace in that it’s a traditional medicine that has the support of science.

Extracts from either the roots or the leaves have broad antibacterial activity against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial isolates, and it is anti-fungal as well. I think some antioxidants were also found and one other extract was nearly as good aspirin. It is a good plant to know if push ever comes to shove and there are no pharmacies around. The roots are also diuretic and used for stomach aches (which eating too much of the cooked leaves can give you.)  Leaves are pasted and applied to skin problems. Medicine were made from fresh and dried parts.

Young leaves are famine food

The lobed leaves are covered especially on the bottom with “stellate trichomes” which are star-shaped plant hairs, which is probably why cattle, which have only lower teeth, won’t eat it.  The cocklebur seeds cling to their hair, however, so they help spread it around. The nutritional value of 100 grams of raw leaves is:  81.8 percent moisture, 54 cal, 3.2 g of protein, 0.1 g fat, 12.8 g carbohydrates, 1.8 g fiber, and 2.1 g ash, 558 mg calcium, and 67 mg of phosphorous per 100 g. When one cooks the leaves the resulting roan-colored water is tossed away. If you were an herbalist you might want to investigate that water. In some places that water is used as a tea for colds.

The Caesar Weed has bast fiber. The fiber strands are cream colored and lustrous. It’s grown mainly in the Congo area although some is raised in Brazil, India and the Phillippines.  It has the same uses as  jute and sometimes is used to make tea bags (you could have had some Caesar Weed and not known it.)  The fiber is obtained by retting, which is letting the plant partially rot in water.

Urena (you-RE-nah) is the Malaysian word for the plant and lobata (low-BAH-tuh) refers to the lobed leaves, after ear lobes. It is also sometimes called U. sinuata (there is a bit of disagreement if sinuata is a subspecies, a different species, or just another name for lobata.) Sinuata means bending or curving. In English we say “sinuous.”

Incidentally, even U. lobata’s common name refers obliquely to a plant characteristic and is something of a joke. “Caesar” mean’s “head of hair” and the plant is very hairy, something the bald Julius Caesar would have envied. Indeed, the Caesars were well-known for being very bald while their family name meant just the opposite.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION:

Shrub to 13 feet. Hairy stemmed, burdock-like seeds pods, small, five segments. The small pink five-petal blossoms usually  grow with a right twist or a left twist. Leaves 3 to 6 inches, oval with shallow lobes.

TIME OF YEAR:

Flowers nearly year round

ENVIRONMENT:

Moist soil, watered waste grounds, dry land with good rain, found in subtropic to tropic areas.

METHOD OF PREPARATION:

Young leaves, flowers, calyces, seeds, cooked, also flowers raw. Seeds used to thicken soup, porridge, A famine food, or an addition to the herb pot when foraging is scarce. It can make some queezy. Better used as a medicinal herb.

HERB BLURB

Broad antibacterial activity against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial isolates, anti-fungal, contains antioxidants, has aspirin like uses. Roots used for stomach aches and are diuretic. Leaves are pasted and applied to skin problems.

It is used to make tea for colds and flowers as an expectorant for “dry and inveterate coughs”.  In South America it provides a sedative and in Brazil a root and stem decoction is a treatment for colic.  Also used in Chinese medicine to treat kidney failure.

Crushed flowers, with salt, are applied to boils. Decoction of roots are taken by children with fevers. A decoction of roots, with those of Sida rhombifolia, is taken for stomachache and coughs. Leaves are used in aromatic steam bath for fevers and decoction of leaves is applied to skin rashes. The root is also used as a poultice to reduce swellings.

Decoction of the leaf is taken twice daily to reduce blood pressure; and also is taken before sleep to relieve rheumatic pain and body ache. The leaves are used as tea against sore throats and oral erosion, while leaves are good to treat urinary troubles and dysentery.

Mesquite’s More Than Flavoring: It’s Food

If Euell Gibbons was still around he might ask, “have you ever eaten a Mesquite tree?” rather than his famous questions about pines.

Many people have used the Mesquite flavor while barbecuing. But long before there was a “barbi” American natives were harvesting pods off at least six species of Mesquite. Among them were Prosopis chillensis, Proscopis glandulosa,  Proscopis glandulosa var. glandulosa, Proscopis glandulosa var. torreyanna, Proscopis pubescens, and Proscopis velutina, the latter perhaps the most preferred.

Mesquite Tree

Among the Indians using the Mesquite were the Apache, Cahuilla, Chiricahua, Cocopa, Comanche, Diegueno, Havasupai, Hualapai, Isleta, Kamia, Kawaiisu, Keres, Kiowa, Laguna, Luiseno, Mahuna, Maricopa, Mohave, Paiute, Papago, Pima, Pima Gila River, Seri, Yavapai, and Yuma. They knew a good thing when they tasted it. There are almost as many uses for the tree as there were tribes. Main uses were young pods eaten raw or cooked, mature tan pods ground up whole to make a gluten-free flour; or, the pods and seeds separated and ground separately for different uses.

Those other uses include: Grinding, adding water, and letting the mixture ferment; pods used as a sugar substitute (they’re 16% sugar);  the tree’s white resinous secretions used to make candy or chewed like gum; fresh pods pounded and juice drank like milk;  pounded beans mixed with sea lion oil; pods rotted in a hole for a month then ground into a flour to make a beverage; beans boiled, cooled then pressed into cakes; catkins sucked for sweetness; toasted seeds ground and added to coffee; flowers eaten raw or roasted, often formed into dumplings then stored.

While making wine was a way of preserving food and its calories in the desert southwest, the native range, preservation was rather easy, dry the pods and seeds on the roof. Thus we must conclude they made wine for the same reasons we do today… for health reasons of course….

But, before you do anything with a pod, taste it. They aren’t always sweet or of good flavor. If you don’t like the taste of the pods on a particular tree, try a different tree. Also avoid moldy pods and any pods stained black (which means always harvest off the tree, not the ground. Pods on the ground can be infected with a fungus that can cause insanity and a very painful death. Leave them alone.)

Mesquite Pods

The pods are 13.9 g protein, 3.0 g fat, 78.3 g total carbohydrate, 27.7 g fiber, and 4.8 g ash. Seeds contain 65.2 g protein, 7.8 g fat, 21.8 g total carbohydrate, 2.8 g fiber, and 5.2 g ash.  Per 100 g, the flower contains: 21.0 g protein, 3.2 g fat, 65.8 g total carbohydrate, 15.5 g fiber, 10.0 g ash, 1,310 mg Ca, and 400 mg phosphorus. Analyzed differently the entire pod is 14.35% water,  1.64% oil, 16.36% starch, 30.25% glucose, 0.85% nitrogenous material, 5.81% tannin-like material, 3.5% mineral salts, and 27.24% cellulose. If you are using the leaves as fodder for animals they are 19.0 g protein, 2.9 g fat, 69.6 g total carbohydrate, 21.6 g fiber, 8.5 g ash, and 2,080 mg Ca.

And just what wildlife likes those leaves and fruit? Cattle, horses, domestic sheep, goats, mules, and burros. It is not unusual to see these trees browsed up to the height these animal’s can reach. Mesquite seeds are an important part of the diet of mice, kangaroo rats, woodrats, chipmunks, ground squirrels, rock squirrels, cottontail, skunks, quail, doves, ravens, the black-tailed prairie dog, black-tailed jackrabbit, porcupine, raccoon, coyote, collared peccary, white-tailed deer, mule deer, wild turkey, and mallard ducks. However, cattle on a poor diet can be made ill by eating mesquite.

Besides food mesquite has had various medicinal applications as well. Water and alcoholic extracts are antibacterial. However, using the wood in the fireplace has caused dermatitis, as has working with seasoned wood.

Mesquite Flowering

Generally said there are three common species of mesquite; the Honey Mesquite (Proscopis glandulosa), Screwbean Mesquite ( Proscopis pubescens), and Velvet Mesquite ( Proscopis velutina.) The Velvet Mesquite is also the largest of the mesquite species. Low-branched, broad spreading thorny shrub or small tree it has a well-developed crown. It can grow 30 feet tall, and 20 feet wide, with a two-foot trunk. If damaged when young by frost, fire, or browsing, it can sprout multiple trunks — coppicing –and form a shrub.  One might confuse the many mesquite with the many Acacias. However, the mesquite always have 10 stamen (the male part of the flower) and Acacias have more than 10 stamen per flower.

Proscopis (pro-SO-piss) is Greek for burdock, a reference to the tree’s thorns. But if you go back further in the language it  means ‘towards abundance’, from the Greek word ‘pros’, meaning ‘towards’, and ‘Opis’, wife of Saturn, the Greek goddess of abundance and agriculture. ‘Mesquite’ is the English version of the  Nahuatl Indian name for the tree, ‘misquitl’ which means ‘bark that tans’ a reference to the pods because Mesquite bark is often green and involved in photosynthesis.  Velutina, from Latin, meaning velvety and is said vel-oo-TEE-nuh though in Brazilian Portuguese it is said Veh-lou-chee-AN-nah.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION: Velvet Mesquite’s bark is reddish-brown and smooth when young, older trees have bark that’s gray-brown, rough, thick, and shredded into long, narrow strips. Young branches are green and grow in a zig-zag pattern. At the base of each leaf on young branches you will find two inch-long yellow thorns in pairs. Leaves are bipinnate and grow alternatively on a branch. Three to six inches long the leaves are  dark to dusky green with a gray, hairy surface and paler undersides. Flowers are yellow-green, catkins about 2-3 inches long. Blossoms have  bell-shaped calyces, and 5 petals. Pods are straight or slightly curved, flat, about 3-8 inches long, singly, or in drooping clusters. Seed pods are tan and covered in short, velvety hairs when young.

TIME OF YEAR: Pods mature in early summer, dropping by early fall. Often fruit twice, once before seasonal rains and once after.

ENVIRONMENT: Thrives in arid areas but also responds well to irrigation. Mesquite are members of the pea and restore nitrogen to the soil.

METHOD OF PREPARATION: Numerous uses. Young pods raw or cooked, usually boiled. Pods and beans ground up together into a flour, or the pods and beans used separately.

How did primitive man cook without pots or pans?

Mesolithic Cooking: It’s the Pits

How do you cook without pots or pans?

It’s a question our distant ancestors never asked because pots and pans didn’t exist. They just cooked food as best they could, and it wasn’t always easy. When Europeans first came to North America the first request and the one thing the American Indians wanted most was metal pots. I can’t help but think squaws knew a good thing when they saw one and told the braves “no metal pot, no come into the wigwam tonight.”

Several books and numerous professional monographs have been published on cooking before metalware, particularly in the Mesolithic Age, or the middle stone age.  And of course there are hundreds of camping books with various tips about primitive cooking. Not wanting to reinvent the wheel this will just be a random collection of some techniques and food in rough alphabetical order.

Historically, the experts tell us man has been cooking food for close to a million years. For most of man’s history he cooked without pots, pans, or ovens. The first containers would have been wooden, dug out bowls (and canoes.) Baskets can also be made to be water tight or to cook grain in. One would like to think clay pots were instrumental in cooking, and there is some evidence they were, but they seemed to be more a vessel of storage. Clay is fragile and porous. This is how the ancient Greek invented their wine called retsina. They had to line clay pots with pine pitch to keep them from seeping away the wine. The pitch-flavored wine has been drank ever since.

The first metal pots appeared about 4,000 years old in the Old world, which means they are found in digs from about 2,000 BCE on. It is difficult to think of a metal pot as being revolutionary but it was, nearly as revolutionary as the invention of another metal marvel, the stirrup, which dramatically changed warfare. Today we boil an egg within a few minutes over instant fire. We rarely consider that same act took at least a half a day in the past to do, which is why eggs were roasted. It only took minutes. I suspect boiling was used mostly for medicines or occasionally for variety.

More to the point, many of the techniques can still be used. Some are very convenient. Some are still labor intensive. But if you are going to go into the woods and you also plan to eat knowing how cook without pots and pans is a skill every forager should know. In hunter-gatherer societies today they often cook without pots and pans and are very particular how they use their fire. They are using well-proven techniques as old as man.

Acorn mush: Drop hot acorn mush into cold water. It will form a rubbery ball that keeps well. (I am presuming you leached the acorns first.)

Ash cooking: Fish and simple breads wrapped in leaves can be easily and quickly cooked on near-dead coals. There are still coals but they are covered with gray ash. Turn the fish in seven to 10 minutes. Or, put some coals on top. Thin dough wrapped in leaves cook quickly.

Bamboo: Bamboo is hollow between nodes. You can stuff the hollow section with food, plug the top with grass or the like, then lean the tube over a fire. You can boil water the same way or make soup. Another method is to get a three section piece. Punch a small hole through the top and middle nodes (inside.) Put in water and let drain to bottom section, put food in top section. Place the bottom section near the fire, steam will rise and cook food in the top section.

Boiling water: Any boiling in the distant past, which was rare, was done in dug out canoes, wooden bowls, animal skin buckets, or clay pots. Hot rocks were put in the wooden, kin, or clay containers to heat the water. Know that a skin bucket of water suspended over a low fire will not burn. In England at ancient hut sites yard-wide and half as deep holes were carved into the solid rock. With hot coals in the bottom a skin could be stretched partially across the top for making soup or the like. No doubt the hide also added flavor… welcomed or not… Another technique was to put water in a natural shallow rock pit then add hot rocks. Whenever you use hot rocks to boil water the food should be wrapped in grass or leaves. This keeps ash and bits of debris from the rocks from dropping onto the food.

Bread: Bread can be rolled into a long skinny roll then wrapped around a branch like a climbing vine around a trunk and then positioned over the fire. Make sure you pick a safe wood to use such as sycamore, maple, dogwood, willow et cetera.  Bread can also be cooked on a flat hot rock or wrapped in leaves (see Large Leaf entry.)  If you have a primitive (or modern oven) one way to bake bread is to pour several pounds of honey in a bowl, drop the bread dough into the honey, and put the whole thing in the oven. The result is a sweet bread from a very ancient recipe and cooking method. Bread can also be cooked directly on hot coals. The outside will burn but the inside will be edible.

If you have boiling water and a square of cloth you can mix some spices, greens, bits of meat and flour together with a small amount of water to make a dough. Wrap it in the cloth and drop it in the boiling water. It will cook quite quickly.

Cattails: Take a clean cattail rhizome (root) and put it next to a fire or on coals. Literally burn black the outer layers of the root. This cooks the starch in the root fibers. After the outside is burned, open the root peeling the black part back or off. Pull the white fiber between your teeth to get the starch off. This is very easy and take a minimal amount of energy to get a high calorie meal (see my video on said.)

Clay:  Fine clay mixed with a little fine sand was a common means of cooking food where it was abundant. Stuff the food to be cooked, such as a fish or a duck, wrap it in grass, secure, then give it a good coating of clay. Put the clay-covered meat on a flat surface a bit of a distance from the fire and gently dry the clay, turning the meat as needed to ensure all of the clay is dry including the bottom. You do not want any wet spots or holes for the moisture to escape.  Once dry the clay-encrusted meat can be put on the coals or closer to the fire.  The grasses keep the clay and the flesh apart. Your average duck takes two hours to cook this way, turning once.

Small birds can be cooked without plucking. Smeared the clay onto their feathers, dry, then cook. When done this way the bird’s skin cannot be eaten. Porcupines can also be cooked by covering them with clay. When the clay is removed the spines come with it.

Conch: Lay the whole conch, or similar large mollusk, foot side up directly on coals. The entire shell acts as a pot. It is done when it froths.

Crab apples: Some bitter crab apples can be made edible by roasting them next to a fire.

Crayfish: Dispatch them by putting the tip of you knife into their backs just behind the head. Put them on short skewers, tail to head, then arrange vertically near the fire. Their legs et cetera will wiggle as they cook even though dead. When they are hot and red, enjoy.

Drying meat: Suspend thin strips of meat on a tree branch and put over a small fire. It is the updraft that dries the meat, not the heat. You don’t want to cook the meat. A smokey fire reduces the number of interested flies. Do not use conifer wood for the fire or to make smoke or you meat will taste like a pine tree. You can also put strips of meat to dry in the sun on rocks. If you need salt, you can evaporate sea water.

Eggs: All bird and reptile eggs can be cooked in the coals of a fire, or next to a fire. But you must do it correctly or you will have an egg explosion, not a deadly one but it could take out an eye. Practice with a chicken egg. All eggs have a fat end and a skinny end. Find the fat end. Make a small hole in the tip of the fat end then enlarge the hole to the size of a nickel, a quarter if a goose egg, half a penny if a quail egg. With a small pocket knife or a stick pierce the air membrane and the yoke. Nestle the egg, hole up, in coals near the fire. If using a chicken egg, turn it after five minutes, and cook for another 5 minutes. By then the white should be solid and the yoke semisolid like dough. Quail eggs take about two minutes per side, a goose egg 10 minutes per side.

Want a fried egg?  If you have a banana leaf you can arrange the leaf carefully near the coals and fry an egg on the leaf. It has just enough oil and toughness to do the job. (I should add there are two birds in the South Seas that are not eaten because they eat toxic bugs.)

Fish: While nearly every boy scout knows several ways to cook a fish over a fire little thought is given to flavor. The cleaned fish has a natural cavity to put items for seasoning. Among the items one can flavor a cooking fish with in the body cavity are plums, elderberries, bay leaves, blackberries, grapes, nuts, wild garlic, pepper grass, smartweed, sorrel, oxalic, sea purslane, seablite, sea mustard, gorse flowers, dandelion, hibiscus, violets, ramps, pepper grass roots, shepherd’s purse roots and others. (See “Clay” entry.)  Small fish can be wrapped in leaves and cooked on a low coals.

Gar and mullet can be cooked as is uncleaned directly on ashes, about 10 minutes a side for a foot long fish. When dons just pull off the skin. Do not eat Gar eggs. They are toxic to mammals.

Flat Rocks: While hot rocks are commonly used for pit cooking they can be used directly. Start a fire one several flat rocks. Let it burn down. Brush away the coals and cook your food directly on the flat rocks. This is good for small game and fish. You can also put a flat rock into the coals or prop a flat rock between two rocks with coals underneath. Grease the rock or your food will stick.

The ultimate flat rock is a polished slab of granite over a fire (or charcoal.)  You can hold it up with four bricks or the like. Remember to oil it before cooking.

Hot Rocks: Can be used to open difficult fruit or nuts. Take the rock to the nut, or the nut to the rock.

Insects: Some North American Indians would dig a pit in the middle of a field and build a fire in it. When it had reduce to coals they would fan out around the field and drive grasshoppers and crickets towards the pit. The insects would fall in the pit and get cooked. Once the fire had cooled the insects were eaten. In your backpack you can carry a piece of iron wire to skewer grasshoppers for roasting. Insects must be cooked thoroughly because they have parasites. See “Parching” entry. As for grasshoppers, eat those that are solid colors, such as all brown, all black, all green. Avoid multi-colored grasshoppers especially orange and black ones.

Large leaves: Several large leaves can be used to wrap food for cooking. Sometimes the leaves have to be wilted (burdock, water dock) other times the spine needs to be bent (bananas and Alligator Flag, read Thalia geniculata.) Other leaves, such as Paper Mulberry, can wrap small items. Indians in the southern United States cooked corn bread wrapped in the leaves of the Alligator Flag. Eggs can be fried on a banana leaf and many Asian cultures wrap food for steaming or roasting in banana leaves. The most common packaging via a banana leaf is pyramidal.

Meat: Any piece of meat weighing a few pounds can be easily roasted if you have a leather thong (or boot lace.) Using the thong (or strong string) suspend the meat beside the fire and twist the meat so when you let it go it spins. Depending upon the weight and materials used the chunk can spin back and fourth for 10 to 20 minutes. This assures even cooking.  The down side is that it needs nearly constant attending and rewinding. Also if you use string, you should wet the string occasionally to keep it from burning. Cooking time depends upon how close to the fire you suspend the meat and its size. A four-pound chicken a foot from the fire takes about four hours to cook thoroughly, or an hour a pound.  Smaller portions of meat can be put on a spit.

Another technique if using a hot stone pit is to wrap a hunk of meat in a simple flour and water dough. The dough cooks to a rock-hard consistency but holds in the meat juices and stays soft next to the meat. If you wrap the meat carefully and take it out with the dough seam on top the dough makes a perfect bowl.

Meat can also be placed directly on hot coals. The outside will get covered with ash and burn but the inside will be edible.

Nettles: Most members of the Urtica genus sting. Usually you collect them with gloves and then boil them. A different technique is to hold or suspend the entire plant near your fire or hot coals until it is very wilted. Remember to turn the plant in the process. The heat renders the chemical in the sting harmless and you can eat the plant raw.

Nuts: Make a bed of sand, bury the nuts in their shells in the sand, one to two inches depending upon the size of the nut. Build a small fire over the nuts. When the fire has died, dig up the nuts. This is particularly good with hazelnuts (filberts.)  Do not do this with acorns as they have tannic acid that must first be leached out.

Parching grain:  Put seeds in a basket or wooden bowl. Add a series of fire-hot rocks and stir around the bowl, cooking the seeds. When the rock cools remove and add another. Your nose will tell you when the grain is cooked. You might find it interesting that ancient man in Britain had a novel way of storing grain. He would dig a bell-shaped hole in the ground and fill it with grain. Then he plugged the top with a clay clump. The grain on the outside of the hole against the damp earth would germinate. The germinating grain would use up the oxygen in the hole leaving carbon dioxide. Without air the germinating grain died and formed a crust around the rest of the grain protecting it. Research shows the method works better than modern grain storage.

Some Insects, nuts and small tubers can also can be parched.

Pit baking: This technique works for a variety of food, just change the size of the pit, the materials and cooking time. When I was a boy we would often go out to an island at low tide, spend the day, usually over night, and then return on the next low tide. First we would dig a hole, line it with dry rocks, and start a fire in the pit. Then we would dig up clams, knock muscles of the rocks, and rummage around the seaweed for small crabs. When the fire had burned down we put seaweed in the pit, tossed in the shellfish, covered it with seaweed. After about an hour, or when we remembered, we would open the pit and have our feast. A matt or the like over the seaweed made things cook faster.

With large game you dig a larger hole, use more rocks, and build a larger fire. With large hunks of meat you must remove some of the rocks, put the meat in,  and put on rocks on top of the meat and then cover it all well. A grass mat helps hold the heat in. Give a leg of lamb three hours. Never use rocks from a stream. They can explode when heated.

Variation: After the rocks are hot, lay in the food and the rest around a stick placed vertically in the middle. Before closing pull the stick out, pour a couple of cups of water down the hole then cover the hole. Good for steaming vegetables.

A second pit method is to dig the pit, line it with stones if you have them, cover the food with leaves, cover that with three inches of dirt and then build a fire over the pit.

If you don’t have rocks you can use clay. Aboriginals dug pits about 4 feet long and 3 feet deep. They put firewood in the pit along with large lumps of clay.  After the fire burn down the lumps of hot clay were removed, the pit swept clean, lined with green leaves or grasses, then small game were put in, covered with green grass, weighted down with the hot clay, then everything buried again. Small game took and hour or so, larger game like small pigs or possums two hours or more.

Pumpkin cook pot: Think about. A pumpkin is hollow, has edible pulp and is a natural pot. Take off the top in a manner that allows you to put it back on like a lid. Scoop out the seeds for roasting. Put what you want to cook in the water proof hollow, replace the lid, put near the fire or in the coals. Watch closely. You can also put a spicy custard in the pumpkin for a seasonal treat. Actually nearly every edible squash member with a hard outer peel can be used this way.

Alternative method. Put a series of clean hot rocks in the pumpkin to cook the content, especially if it is a soup or stew.

Salt: Small amounts of salt water can be held on large leaves in the sun to evaporate leaving salt. Or along the shore several plants exude salt on their leaves or contain salt and can be used for salt flavoring, such as glasswort and seablight.

Sandspurs: These highly nutritious and calorie-dense grains are protected by painful spines. Harvest the plant by cutting it off near the ground. Use the stalk as a handle. Hold the seed heads over the fire or near the coals and burn off the spines. This also parches the seed. Once the spines are burned away consume the seeds right off the stem. The only caution is the seed has a lot of oil and burns easily so several passes into the fire is better than putting it in the fire and leaving it there. That usually ends up with it just catching on fire. (See my video.)

Seal blubber: Can be eaten raw or cooked.

Shellfish: Line saltwater shellfish up on a flat rock then rake coals over them. You can do the same with fresh water shellfish but they don’t taste as good and must be cooked very thoroughly because of dangerous parasites.  You can also “cook” small saltwater shellfish with citric acid using juice from wild oranges and the like.

Australian Aboriginals cooked saltwater shellfish quickly by putting them on coals next to the fire, foot up. When the frothed they were done. This also helps to avoid overcooking the shellfish and making them tough. They also consumed cockles (mollusks) by the tens of millions. They heaped them into a pile and built a small fire on the heap. That caused the shells to pop open eliminating the need to break them open.

Spit cooking: A spit is a usually green stick skewering small amounts of meats, vegetables. It is held over hot coals. You can hold the spit or prop it with two rocks, one over the end and one under it to regulate height. You can cut a forked branch to hold meat so you can rotate the meat easily. You can also split the spit and run small sticks through the split in the spit and the meat to hold it firm.

Reflector: Any material that can be used to reflect heat can make cooking go faster. A rock wall, piled stones, logs, all can reflect heat. Put the meat you are cooking between your fire and the reflector

Sugar: Young Bulrush (Scirpus) shoots can be harvested green. Dried then pounded and sieved the resulting white powder is sweet. Young peas can be used as a sugar substitute or as a fruit.

Turtles: Their shells make good cooking pots but boil water in them first to clean and disinfect. Skulls can be used likewise. Roast ungutted turtle on coals. When the shell splits they are done. Almost the entire turtle is edible except the lungs, gall bladder, skeleton, skull and nails. You really want to avoid the gall bladder and take steps not to rupture it.

Vegetables: Most roots vegetables can be baked next to a fire or in the coals of a fire. More so, with many root vegetables their peel protects them and dry heat intensifies the flavor. Depending upon the root it can be next to the fire, on the coals, or buried in the coals.

Yeast: Sources of wild yeast are grapes and elderberries. Each have a lot of yeast on their skins. This yeast can be used to make wine, beer, and raise bread.