OK all of you wild food enthusiasts, what do you harvest for home use and how do you prepare it? We are going into this business for real. As many of you know, we harvest and sell many kinds of wild mushrooms. We have also sold ramps and fiddleheads. We eat poke and lots of other greens. Restaurants pay big dollars for these things. Any other wild foods? Anyone interested in being a gatherer? Joel, I know you are close enough to work with. Anyone else in WV or SE VA interested in gathering wild foods? Some mushrooms I will pay $10/lb possibly higher.

-- Terri Perry (teperry@stargate.net), December 29, 2000

Answers

We enjoy the wild mushrooms -(Morrells) sp ck ? I guess I didn't realize they grew around here. I was used to gathering them in Iowa and Minn. I'll look next fall. I gather as much ginseng as I can find--some for the wife and some for sale as the income off ginseng is non-taxable.

Polk salad is way too easy to find. What other mountain foods and herbs are you seeking ? I have a old mountain man friend on disability that can find you anything you want. There is also alot of gold in these hills if you want to take the time to extract it.

I guess the other wild foods we gather are asparagus,some root that she mixes with mustard, all variety of nuts, and we do posess a bountiful collection of herbs from these mountains.I know my wife tried to contact you several times unsucessfully. I know for a fact she would be very interested ! Please write the e-mail below and contact her and she will give you her number. If memory serves me correct---we are only 20 or 30 miles apart. Take Care !

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), December 30, 2000.

I'm too far away,but intrigued,anyway.Are you selling the mushrooms fresh or are they dried? Don't need to give away any trade secrets as it's just curosity.Do you do shitake as well?

Dandelion of course, is eaten, here and back home,but I personally don't care for it.Sorrel is good. Wild blackberries are preferred,at the farmers mkt. to cultivated.Wild leeks are good,but I'm having a hard time finding them,again.Chickweed is plentiful and good.I chew on it, raw,when I'm weeding.

The medicinals are gathered or grown,and we have a coop formed for marketing them.However,I'm not yet ready for that.

I don't wild gather much. Most places here 'sang's pretty hard to find anymore,esp. of any size, but a number of things can be grown 'virtually wild' for harvest.We are just starting some projects.

Anyway,sounds like an interesting project.

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), December 30, 2000.

We love to gather the morrel mushrooms, also sheephead mushroom (really huge around here). In the summer we spend many hours going after black raspberries (certainly a small slice of heaven), also blackberries. We also gather different kinds of nuts. We don't sell anything just keep them for ourselves or for gifts. It's a lot of fun and good exercise.

-- Melissa (cmnorris@1st.net), December 30, 2000.

Wild violet leaves (not to be confused with african violets) are a great salad green - similar in texture to a buttercrunch, in taste to a mild arugula. The flowers also make a nice color addition and I hear that they also make a nice pale cobalt-colored tea. A wild violet leaf and flower mix would be a great salad seller, and you could add in a few wild types of sorrel (heart leaved and arrow leaved) just for good measure. I know they make my day! We also steam up curly dock leaves (very little cooking time needed - nice and tangy). I hear that all of the above are really high in vitamins. How about prickly pear? I hear that the pads are a delicacy and they pretty much grow wild here in NC.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), January 01, 2001.

Soni I have a tea mix I make up that incorporates violet flowers and leaves as well as other native plants. It's delicious.I need to make up a batch.Would you like some?

Anyone hunting morels in the fall? You have a rough row to hoe. Good,luck anyway.

Terri- Do you collect honey mushroom? Armelaria melea,I sure that is spelled incorrectly.I have not,bc I'm not certain of it.There are others that look similar.How do you tell the difference? I collect what I can tell apart from others. I won't chance taking something that has lookalikes. A couple one place I lived got very ill eating what they thought wes horse mushroom,and they were experienced pickers.How do you deal with this?

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), January 01, 2001.

Sharon - Do you have the recipe for the tea mix? Is it something that I can make up myself? Sounds like something I'd like!

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), January 01, 2001.

Yes,and I post it.Bicententil tea,garanteed to raise the spirit of '76.Although I expect you'd have to spike it for that full effect! That was done, alot.

It incorperates the kind of things that were used to replace English tea. I'll get out the recipe book and hunt it up.

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), January 01, 2001.

There are wild things that are delicious, and there are wild things that are just edible. I've eaten everything from grass seeds to grasshoppers, but here's what I regularly gather these days: many greens - favorites include chickweed, spring cress, wintercress, greenbrier shoots (S. rotundifolia), poke, blue violets, lambsquarters -, butternuts, black walnuts, hickory nuts, milkweed shoots & flowers & pods, ramps (wild leeks), cattail flowers, blackberries, cranberries, blueberries/huckleberries, raspberries, strawberries, crabapples, red haws (hawthorn), maple syrup, many kind of mushrooms, various teas & medicinals. I'm sure I'm fogetting some, and to go into detail would take too long. Happy to answer specific questions. Terri, wildcrafting for you sounds great - wish I had the time.

Sharon, you are right to be cautious about mushrooms. Find someone who really knows them or stick to the more distinctive ones. Best book is Bessette & Fischer: Edible Wild Mushrooms of N.A.

-- Sam in W.Va. (turnip55a@yahoo.com), January 02, 2001.

Thanks for all of the ideas. Now, to answer a few questions- Joel, I have been picking, eating and selling the following mushrooms for several years- Hen of the woods (maitake), Chanterelle, Black Trumpet, Cauliflower, Oyster, Angel Wings, Morel, King bolete (cepes), Sulfer Shelf and Beef Steak. Last summer, our little business grew out of control. We made over $10,000 in ten weeks. That was with six people picking, five of which have fulltime jobs. We still had alot of demand we could not meet. The buyers also had lots of special requests- Ramps (A buyer in Michigan says he can handle around 1,000 lbs per week in the spring.), poke, watercress,fiddleheads, cattails, dandelions. Also heard from two groups that wanted to buy live plants. All of this from word of mouth. I live about 25 miles from Sweet Springs. Do you live near New Castle? I have tried to email you also, only to have the messages bounce back.I will find a way to contact you. Sharon- We sell most of the mushrooms fresh.The largest market we have for Hen of the Woods requires they be dried. We get $40-$50/lb dry. The largest one we found weighed 90 lbs fresh, 10 lb dry. No, we don't bother with shitake. Too many growers around here, and the price has gone down considerably. We do not collect honey mushrooms. They are much to fragile to ship well. We ship overnight Fed Ex as far away as Michigan and Florida, so they have to hold up. The fragile oysters and angel wings are sold to a local hotel same day as gathered. If you want to learn about mushrooms, buy field guides, join clubs and go to lots of forays. Each mushroom has certain identifying characteristics. If they don't meet them all, leave them alone. The ones we harvest are quite simple to identify and only one has a deadly "look-a-like" that doesn't look like it. We hand sort all mushrooms picked by others. If I ever find a "bad" one, I won't buy from that person again. Sam- Thanks for all the great ideas. I have always enjoyed wildcrafting even before I knew it was called that. As far as time goes, I work fulltime as a nurse, have a family, teach Red Cross classes, volunteer at a local museum, and attend college fulltime. Also have livestock and breed Bassett Hounds. I am scaling down and giving up a few things to focus on this business. I prefer being in the woods to work anyday. I have several questions for you and will contact you later. Thanks again.

-- Terri Perry (teperry@stargate.net), January 02, 2001.

Bicentennial tea

1c.wild bergamot or bee balm 1 c.lemon balm 1c.pennyroyal 2c.mints 1/2 c.fennel seed 1/2 c.violet leaves & blossoms 1/2 c. sassafrass bark,cut fine.

You can leave out the pennyroyal,as it is an abortant and poisonous in sufficient quantity.We drank it as a spring tonic,growing up.

Tha sassafrass is carcinogenic in sufficient quantities,but you decide for yourself.I've left out both and it was still delicious.We drank this too,when I was a child.

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), January 02, 2001.

Sharon, thanks for sharing the tea recipe - I'll try it. Probably will omit the pennyroyal, but include the sassafras. I wondered about the safety of sassafras when the news came out many years ago and could find no info I trusted. I made a trip to the medical library at WVU and looked up the original research (I believe it was in JAMA). Someone had dosed mice with large quantities of the essential oil (safrole) and - surprise - the little critters developed tumors. Also the authors went on to urge doctors to discourage their patients from using herbal remedies. I don't drink 10 gallons of sassafras tea every day, just drink it when I feel like it and don't worry about it. And I really don't expect it to harm me or anybody else. And I'll continue to use herbal medicines, thank you. Incidentally here's how I like it: fill a mug halfway with strong sassafras tea, sweeten with sugar, finish filling with milk.

-- Sam in W.Va. (turnip55a@yahoo.com), January 02, 2001.