Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 11, 1993 TAG: 9308130221
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAT BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
You'll have to release the primordial gatherer in yourself and take to the woods if you want to succeed at discovering the edible gifts of mountain meadow and forest.
Hiding in the hills are roots and shoots, leaves and berries that await notice. Properly identified and prepared, they can afford the alert browser a delightful cornucopia of taste treats.
But don't delay. Even as you read, blackberries on hillsides are dropping off their thorny habitats. Look for them still, but you may have to try harder now. Any remaining berries will have been protected from the heat by a bit of shade or nourished by a nearby stream.
While many area residents have experienced the joys of blackberries, less familiar presents also await the forager. There are greens for steaming and raw delights for munching as you search for more. There will be grapes and other fruits at summer's close, plus nuts in the fall.
Old-timers may need little more than a word of encouragement to go wandering in the wild for edible plants, but novice gatherers need a field guide. Or an old-timer. After all, there are some plants out there that are not intended for human consumption.
Alice Hanawalt, park ranger at Booker T. Washington National Monument, further warns that people shouldn't be guided in their choices by the other beasts of the field. "There's a persistent myth in this area that the squirrel knows which half of the horse chestnut to eat," she said, noting that any side of the horse chestnut, known also by the name of buckeye, is poisonous to humans.
Hanawalt is in charge of an herb garden at the national park. She spoke fondly of the pawpaw, a favorite among area residents a century ago when people spent more time gleaning nature's gifts than they now do. They called the pawpaw the custard apple, because of its shape. Hanawalt said the soft, fleshy fruit will have a texture like a banana. It can be found on the pawpaw tree, which stands 12 to 15 feet high, seeking shade beneath its forest companions. The early green skin of the fruit yellows as it ripens in the fall. It is sweet smelling and sweet tasting, and, according to one field guide, afforded nourishment to Lewis and Clarke on their expedition. They probably ate it raw, but pawpaw can be cooked into a dessert.
Fred Huber, a botanist for Jefferson National Forest headquartered in the Roanoke office, says foragers will have to look up to find\ fox grapes. These ancestors of the concord grape like to grow high in trees, and are easily recognizable because their leaves are typically shaped. Huber suggests that foragers check the forest edges, since the fox grapes need full sun.
The clusters will have the familiar dark purple color but will be less dense than clusters on domestic vines. As is true of many of the items included here, it is a good idea to spot them early so that you can watch for them to ripen. Depending on rain and temperatures, expect fox grapes to mature in late August or early September.
Huber said gatherers might find a variety of berries that can be coaxed into wines, jellies and pies.\ Black raspberries are not as abundant as\ blackberries, but they're out there. A field guide explains that the black raspberry will grow from a single core and will drop easily when ripe. The blackberry, on the other hand, will cling to the core even after it is ripe. Otherwise, the two cousins are hard to tell apart.
Another usable berry is the\ wineberry. The branches of its plant have soft hairy burrs rather than thorns, Huber said, making it more pleasant to gather than those on prickly branches. The berries are "sort of a clear reddish color," Huber said, similar to the color of the domesticated red raspberry.
Also on Huber's berry list is the\ black elderberry, which yields small clusters of blue-black fruits. This shrub, usually about five feet tall, likes moisture and yields a fruit high in Vitamin A. But do not eat its cousin, the red elderberry, Huber said.
The\ mountain ash has a red berry cluster that can be gathered toward the end of September. This shrub ranges from two to l5 feet tall and seeks moisture. The berries continue to cling to the bush all winter, and thereby continue to provide food for birds and foragers alike.
Huber said residents of this area will have to travel to the high balds of Mount Rogers to find wild blueberries, but the trip might be worth it. The\ wild blueberries are smaller, Huber said, but superior in flavor to domestic breeds. After tasting the wild blueberry, he said, "The domesticated berries seem to have a watered down taste."
Since the colonists first began to imitate the Indians, people have known that a tea can be made from the root of\ sassafras. It is the young roots of the sassafras that are boiled for tea. Less known is the fact, Huber said, that the stems and leaves are dried to form file, the seasoning and thickening agent for cajun gumbo.\ Staghorn sumac provides a lemonade-like drink when the red berries are soaked in water. Several field guides detail the procedure for making the brew, and all the methods are simple. If you automatically associate the word "poison" with the word "sumac," you'll be reassured to know that none of the recipes call for the white-berried poison variety.
Katherine Chantal of Floyd usually pursues wild herbs for healing, but she is also familiar with the edible properties of area plants. She recommends a variety of greens and use of "Petersons Field Guide to Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants."
She says that dandelion greens after the first frost (or in early spring) can be used in much the same way as spinach, "for example in a quiche." Her personal favorite among the greens is chickweed. It will be more scarce in hot weather, she said, and will need to be sought in shade.
There are wild mints in the woods, Chantal said, that make wonderful teas. Mints offer their flavors in the form of aromatic oils that are best retrieved by steeping overnight. The leaves are a refreshing addition to salads and can be dried easily to use later.
A drink made from the root of chicory was a favorite of Booker T. Washington, according to Hanawalt. The root is the part he savored, and the part that can be roasted and ground and used as an additive to coffee. The blue flower of the plant can be seen all over hillsides and by the sides of the road. But Hanawalt warns that foraging should always take place away from heavily traveled roads. "Plants there are coated with lead," she said.
Hanawalt also warned against using plant roots swathed in water. "Toxins can concentrate in standing water," she said, and eating plants that grow in such places "is just not a good idea at the end of the 20th century." It is only fair to point out, however, that Euell Gibbons in his book, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" calls the common cattail the "supermarket of the swamps," and describes dozens of ways it can be consumed.
Hanawalt said the region is usually blessed with a mushroom bloom in the fall, but adds,"You really need to know your mushrooms." She recommended going on a mushroom foray with Science Museum of Western Virginia guides, but a call to the museum turned up no set date for such an outing this fall.
Among the apple trees on mountain hills can be found wild apples and crabapples that, while they may be too tart to eat raw, will be delicious cooked. Crabapple jelly has a respectable local reputation, and the adventurous may want to try crabapple sauce.
Nuts that can be spotted on trees now will be pleasant to eat in the fall. Huber said that hickory nuts are good, "but it could take you all day to get a pint." He said the first frost will make the ready hickory nuts easy to separate from their thicks hulls. "Don't bother with them if they don't come off easily," he said. The nut hull has four distinct sections and the nut is light tan. In his book, Gibbons declares he prefers the hickory nut's flavor to that of the pecan, its biological kin.
Black walnuts "give a bigger yield," Huber said. He recalled that as a boy he lined the family driveway with walnuts that were still in their hulls. The nuts would dry out in the open air and the family car's tires would grind off the hull and break the nuts open.
Long after most of the soft wild fruits are gone, the forager can still hope to find a succulent persimmon. The dull orange color of the fruit can be spotted dangling from the tree of the same name. Biting into an unripe persimmon can be likened to biting into a lemon.
Most sources say the fruit must endure a fall frost before it will ripen. Regardless, the fruit is not ripe until it is soft - even gooey - to the touch. The tasty pulp can be eaten raw or used in recipes for bread and cookies.
The pursuit of a wild harvest is not without competition. The birds are searching from above and the crawling, jumping, scampering animals are searching wherever they can go. To make the odds even less in your favor, they know a lot more than you probably do, even if your field guide is well indexed.
Still, if the best things in life really are free, think of the tasty morsels you are missing, and hit the trail to the woods.
by CNB