Forage Day - the Results!

Was my foraging successful?  Did I end up buying lunch?  Did I go hungry?

Yes, no, and no.

My foraging started at 1:30pm - late for lunch, yes, but my work schedule got in the way of my foraging schedule.

Lesson One:  A modern work day interferes with a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.


I thought some acorns might be a nice, nutty nosh - but raccoons and squirrels had beaten me to the best oak trees.  My efforts in acorn hunting were rewarded not by oak mast, but raccoon poop.

Lesson Two:  Raccoons are better wild omnivores than I am.  I was outforaged by red squirrels...

My hunger growing, I started to look harder.  I found some mountain ash berries - unpalatable during the summer, but after a frost, only slightly bitter and sour.  Score:  One handful of slightly unpleasant berries.

I remembered we had some cloves of garlic and onions from FortWhyte Farms kicking around.  They belong to everyone, and no one...a tragedy of the commons, really, as no one would likely use them.  Except me.

Score:  Two cloves of garlic, one onion, and some berries.

I remembered some past foraging I'd done, during mushroom season.  I had some lovely dried morels, and a few oyster mushrooms.  Add these to the score.

Looking around the FortWhyte landscape, I saw the one plant we can count on to feed us in any season- the cattail.  Fall and winter, cattail roots provide a potato-like, if somewhat fibrous, starch food.  My colleague Minna and I grabbed a spade, and five minutes later, could add one cup of cattail root to the score.

I will post the recipe below, but cooked together into a hearty soup, my foraged ingredients made a nice, late afternoon soup lunch.  Vegetable, starch, a tiny bit of butter for fat and dairy, and a reasonably balanced lunch results.

The initial review of the soup was very positive.  The mountain ash berries, which are pretty poor snacking on their own, lent a tang to the soup.  The onion, garlic, mushrooms and cattail came together to make a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Lesson Three:  Sometimes, with a little ingenuity, the most unlikely things just come together and become good!


Lesson Four:  A return to only hunting and gathering is not likely the answer to our current problem of over-consumption and consumerism.  But it was a fun way to mark Buy Nothing Day.  It was an experience that reminded me of the value of food, how easy it can be for us to get food, and how we still have a long way to go to make sure scrounging and foraging is a choice, not a necessity, for people, here and elsewhere.

For anyone who is interested, I'm posting the recipe below.

Foraged Soup with Cattail Root and Wild Mushroom

1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp butter
Salt and pepper optional
10 frozen mountain ash berries
1 cup dried mushrooms (morels and oysters?)
1 cup cattail roots, freshly dug
l litre of fresh water.

Saute onion, garlic in butter.  Add salt and pepper, and mountain ash berries.  Wash and peel cattail roots, saute for two minute.  Add half the water.  Bring to boil for five minutes.  Add mushrooms and remaining water.  Bring back to boil, and simmer for ten minutes, until mushrooms are tender and rehydrated.

Serves two hungry people, allows for four light tastings.