Feasting on forage
By Frank Carini / ecoRI News columnist
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| Autumn olives, delicious, nutritious and invasive. Ripening right about now. Photo by Will Collette |
Our hostess, Keri Brulé, delivered a splendid 2-hour presentation. The affable University of Rhode Island student working on her master’s degree shared how to identify what we were about to put in our mouths, preparation tips, and valuable information to keep us from having a seizure or pooping our pants.
We learned a lot about foraging. Most of the 15 of us
walking through the woods and meadows of Ryan Park seemed comfortable with the
idea of feeding ourselves in the wild. I was not among the confident. Without
Brulé, a botanist and plant ecologist, planning the menu, I’m fairly certain I
would eat the wrong plant or the wrong part. I would not survive the
apocalypse.
The Sept. 12 breakfast club gathered in a parking lot
outside a gym on Ten Rod Road. The edible walk was sponsored by the Rhode Island Wild Plant Society.
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| Besides sampling the wild menu, Keri Brulé, here holding an edible tuber from a young Indian cucumber root, encouraged participants to also touch … (Frank Carini/ecoRI News) |
“European colonizers arrived in the 1600s and they brought
their forms of food and medicine that they were familiar with to this
landscape. Not longer after, enslaved people were brought here against their
wills and they brought their food and medicine with them as well, when they
could. The landscape you are in, is the story of the geography, of time,
humans, and, therefore, you.”
She noted we all have, whether we are aware of it or not, an
innate relationship with plants. She encouraged us to look at, touch, smell,
and get to know the plants around us. Mind the poison ivy.
“You were meant to interact with them in the form of food,”
Brulé said.
The Chepachet native grew up in Rhode Island “eating the wood sorrel out of my yard” and “picking blackberries out of the woods.”
Wood sorrel, also known as sourgrass or “nature’s
Skittles,” is an edible wild plant. It’s easy to find, easy to identify, and
common.
“Whenever I got a cut or bruise, my mom told me to get the
‘green stuff’ out of the fridge, which was an indiscriminate pale green balm in
a recycled baby food jar,” Brulé said. It contained plants her mother used for
medicinal purposes.
Sgt. Brulé spent about a decade in the military, in the Rhode Island Army National Guard as a refueler for Black Hawk helicopters and a weapons mechanic.
“It was a great learning opportunity,” she said. “I learned
I am not a soldier.”
Unlike he who will not be named, Brulé would likely survive
the apocalypse. After all, the 38-year-old works at the Raven Wilderness
School, a bushcraft school where she is an apprentice who teaches foraging
and wilderness skills.
Upon her return to civilian life, she went back to school.
She’s currently earning a master’s in ecology. She’s also working with the
Brown University Herbarium and the Rhode Island Natural History Survey to study and document the state’s rare plant species.
Her interest in plants, though, is rooted in foraging.
Edible wild plants were a big part of her upbringing. They make up about 10% of
her diet now. Her favorite pancakes are made with acorn flour.
“Once you start, it just takes a little bit of looking and a
little bit of time, and then these things start becoming apparent,” Brulé said.
“You’ll find food on the ground.”
We’re really not that different than squirrels.
Before we even entered the woods, Brulé found some mugwort
bordering the parking lot. She noted it was once used to make a popular adult
beverage.
“Mugwort was originally used as a flavoring for beer before
hops was popularized and before a beer purity act was put in place, because you
could basically make beer out of whatever,” she said. “You didn’t exactly know
what plant you were getting in your beer prior to that, but it was generally
mugwort — the wort you put in your mug.”
Mugwort is an invasive plant that is far too common. Brulé
noted it really likes disturbed areas, such as off highways and parking lots.
It takes over and then outcompetes native species.
“We’ll find a lot of this, so feel free to pick it. Take as much as you want,” she said. “I would say it is medicinal, not necessarily edible. You can make teas out of it. … Another alternative for using this plant is if you’re a person that likes smudging, burning sage, I offer mugwort for burning and for cleansing. We would love to get rid of it.”
Eat up
One way to help slow the encroachment of invasive plants is
to consume them.
Most invasives don’t have natural predators feeding on or
killing them, but more than a few, including Japanese
knotweed and Dame’s rocket, are edible to humans. Some of which are even
more nutritious and/or flavorful than their cultivated counterparts.
During our edible food trek, we discovered the red berries
that grow on invasive autumn olive bushes are Brulé’s 10-year-old son’s
favorite fruit — “he just eats them by the handful.” Ryan Park must be his
favorite place in Rhode Island.
There’s no shortage of autumn olive on the local landscape. It was introduced to
North America in the early 1800s from Asia for many well-intended reasons —
erosion control, soil reclamation, and wildlife habitat. It quickly became
apparent the idea was ill advised.
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| … and smell the edible and medicinal plants they would encounter on the hike. (Frank Carini/ecoRI News) |
“This was brought here because we thought it was a good idea to feed the wildlife, and turns out it is. It’s just too good at it, and now it’s absolutely everywhere,” Brulé said. “It likes to be cut down. I don’t know how to get rid of it, so I’m going to encourage you to eat it. I am not afraid of you taking 10 percent of the population. I spent, I think, two hours picking this tree a week ago. You’d never know it. They’re everywhere.”
Not all edible invasives, however, are a threat to native
species or take over a landscape. For example, European settlers brought dandelions to North America in the 1600s to use as food
crops and medicinal tonics. Every part of a dandelion is edible, from the
yellow flower to the roots. They also are an important early-spring food source
for emerging insects.
And not all edible wild plants are invasive. Brulé found
several during the walk:
Beach plum: They are typically ready to pick about
mid-August. They are a bit like cranberries in terms of eating, as not many
people eat them straight off the bush. There’s a hint of sweetness and a lot of
tartness, though the flavor varies from bush to bush — as is the case of most
wild edibles. Beach plums are typically made into jams and jellies.
Fox grape: “You can use the grape leaves in some dishes,
and they do produce actual grapes. You make jelly out of them.”
Greenbriar: “If you find the little tendrils at the end of
new shoots, they’re very soft, they’re very flexible, and it has the two little
tendrils. They’re actually extremely tasty. You have to beat the deer to them.
The deer love them, but they’re really tasty. But once it gets tough, it’s
unpleasant.”
Indian cucumber root: The tuber is what is edible. “It is
surprisingly good to eat. It is the texture and the taste of a cucumber. It’s
very watery. It’s very crunchy. A fantastic edible. The only issue is that you
have to destroy the plant to get it. So, please don’t take more than 10% of the
population.”
Also, most sumac species native to North America feature red berries
growing in dense, upright, cone-shaped clusters. The berries are edible.
On the other hand, poison sumac is, well, poisonous, but
luckily it doesn’t feature berry clusters. Even he who shall not be named would
probably eat the correct one.
Note: I was 15 minutes late to breakfast, because I went
to the wrong section of Ryan Park. In my defense, I showed up early to the
wrong place. Keri emailed me her opening remarks.
Frank Carini can be reached at frank@ecori.org. His opinions don’t reflect those of ecoRI News.