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Do you use wild foods? Have you ever wondered what you would eat if you were dropped off in the mountains or the woods?

You'd be shocked at how much of what you pass by every day is actually edible.

Let's start talking about this here!

I've been rounding up some excellent wild foods links.

Here is one on using mullein as a medicine and tea

This one has an excellent uses chart for the parts of dandelions! I've made dandelion wine, BTW. Yum! My recipe was different from this one, but this one looks more fun. I am intrigued by using stale bread as a fermentation platform!

Uhoh. I'm very aversive to eating such 'wild foods'. The farthest I can go where wild is concerned is watch 'Man vs Wild'. Lol. That sucks, I know!

LOL, Jodie. I know - it feels weird to pick a weed and cook with it. It feels a little 'wrong' at first. We are so used to food arriving in packages that we forget things come out of the ground from somewhere!

Within my own yard I have these wild edibles:
- marrow/cheeseweed
- Amaranth
- mustard greens
- bamboo shoots
- pine tips
- pine inner bark
- Pine nuts
- prickly pear pads
- prickly pear fruit
- dandelions (leaves, flowers and roots)

Within a block of my house are also these wild edibles:
- yucca blossoms
- rosemary
- purslane
- mullein
- peppercorns
- mesquite

Within a mile of my home:

- agave bulbs
- cottonwood catkins
- cattails
- wild mint
- pecans (old orchard)
- mushrooms
- acorns
- black walnuts
- black berries
- evening primrose

There are probably miner's lettuce, dock and lamb's quarters around here somewhere, but i am still learning how to ID those.

ooo, this is a good site for wild food plant identification:

Merriweather's texas and southwest wild plant foods

Good photos and ID cues. The Dangers listing is really neat and I haven't seen that done so nicely anywhere else.

I'd buy a book from this guy if he had one!

You know, after looking at a few sources, I am thinking that what I thought was Amaranth is actually Dock.

Ideas for cooking with Dock on the Hunger and Thirst blog. She has amazing recipes and photos of her gourmet wild edible creations. Color me deeply impressed.

Cool! I was just poking around and looking at the weeds and found two more foods in my yard!

Sow Thistle

and prickly lettuce.

I have another plant I think might be miner's lettuce but need to do more research.

Also, i can't find the amaranth/dock thing that I know was all over the yard last year. I think they have not started yet. my source says it's a summer plant.

My backyard is full of really wild strawberries. Good for birds and other little critters.

Yum, Connie - wild strawberries! That sounds like paradise. I don't get wild luscious wet stuff out here; it's just too dry.

I am thinking today to grab some wild yucca flowers and bring them to my class tonite to add to my salad. They are in bloom right now and it's a pity to waste this window of time. maybe I will grab some other greens to add to it.

Use em if you got em!

This is a quote from Little House on the Plains. I think this sounds like a great standard for foraging.

What other foraging rules can you think of?