30 wild foods in your neighborhood

Though it is easy enough to grow food, gathering food from the wild is also an excellent way to feed your family. The best advice for finding and collecting wild foods is to become familiar with the edible varieties that grow in your area. There is plenty to eat in any urban, suburban or rural area (and usually even in your own yard!). Here are a few to try:

Alfalfa: Alfalfa is a delicious treat: enjoy the flowers and leaves best.

Amaranth: Amaranth provides a delicious vegetable and grain.

Apples: Thank Johnny Appleseed for your delicious dinner of roasted apples (and for the dry applewood to cook with), fresh apples, apple cider, etc.

Cacti: Not all cacti are edible, some are extremely toxic. Prickly pears provide the best eating: enjoy the flowers, fruits and stems (the spines are leaves). Barrel cacti stems, flowers and fruit are also good to eat. Enjoy both like their domesticated relatives.

Clover: Clovers are enjoyed for their leaves, flowers and roots.

Columbine: Young columbine leaves are edible, and best steamed.

Crocus: Like domesticated crocus, the flowers and pollen may be savored (crocus is the source of saffron).

Currants: Enjoy the berries as you would the domesticated currant.

Dandelion/Chicory/Lettuce: Enjoy like domesticated dandelion/chicory/lettuce (they are all the same species), leaves, flowers, seeds, roots and all.

Dock: Also called burdock, it is related to buckwheat, and is a delicious grain and a tender spring root. The younger the root, the better the taste. The leaves are also good to eat.

Douglas Fir: Inner bark is also good for eating, the seeds are difficult to eat but are sometimes worth the effort.

Elderberries: Enjoy the berries as you would the domesticated elderberry.

Gooseberries: Enjoy the berries as you would the domesticated gooseberry.

Lambsquarter: Enjoy like spinach. The leaves and stalks are wonderful. Seeds may be ground into flour. Try mixing it into your favorite wheat-flour recipes, or using like poppy seeds.

Oaks: Produce delicious acorns! Try grinding into flour , roasting or baking!

Peppermint: Wild peppermint is a delicious treat. Enjoy best before blooming, but the flowers and leaves (after or before blooming) are good to eat.

Pinion: Pinion are prized for their nut production in the autumn (roast the cones to release the delicious buttery seeds – commonly called pine nuts - or struggle with your fingers to pry them out). The sap is good, too. Try using the seeds to make pancakes, by grinding them up and using them as flour.

Ponderosa: The bark is usually eaten immediately. The nuts are prized. The seeds may be shaken from the cone. Try using the seeds to make pancakes, by grinding them up and using them as flour.

Purslane: The leaves, stems, flowers and roots may be eaten—just like domesticated purslane.

Raspberries: Wild raspberries produce delicious fruit. The canes are good to eat, too.

Roses: The flowers and fruits are prized. Rosehips are great either by themselves, in tea, in jelly, in pies, or even in cold "rosehipade."

Spruce: Tastes a bit like root beer when the dried inner bark is ground into a flour. This is best collected in the early spring, when the plant begins to wake up for the summer. Spruces are also good for building everything from musical instruments to tent poles.

Strawberries: Can be enjoyed like their domesticated cousins.

Sunflowers: Enjoy like domesticated sunflowers. The seeds are best when roasted; the leaves, petals and roots are also edible.

Thistles: Enjoy like the domesticated thistle (artichoke): eat the leaves, stem, flowers and (especially!) the flower buds. To remove spines, turn the plant upside down and, with a knife or your fingers, peel the stalk.
If eating the leaves, the spines may be flattened with a spoon or your fingers. It is recommended that the spines be removed before eating (ouch). The flowers are ready to eat off the plant, but are great steamed with lemon and butter.

Violets, Johnny Jump-Ups and Pansies: All are the same plant. The leaves and flowers are delicious in salad, and may be easily candied for a nice treat.

Western Red Cedars: Are harvested for their inner bark.

Wood Sorrel/Shamrock: The flowers, leaves and roots all taste like clovers.

Yucca: Flowers, fruit and stems are the best parts of the plant, the leaves are edible but require lots of chewing.

Make sure that you positively identify any wild plant before eating it: many plants look alike, and you should take the time to learn how to identify which ones are edible. When in doubt, do not eat it: the poisons of some plants are toxic enough to kill you or seriously injure you. Fungi are especially risky and tricky to identify.

Besides taking care to harvest known plants while not damaging the local ecology, make sure that you are not harvesting something that has been sprayed with dangerous chemicals. This might be the case if you are gathering food in the city or suburbia, or along the side of any roadway (from the oils and fumes of passing cars). You may be able to inquire with the local residents or government to find out what a piece of land may have been treated with, but this is not always possible or reliable. Also be sure to never take foods from protected areas. Always wash your foods before eating them, even if they were collected in the safest of places.

Look for plants that have escaped cultivation: any number of your favorite plants might be waiting for you in the wilderness from wheat to apples.

That said, watch out for wild onions: Though onions are safe and delicious, they resemble several plants that are highly poisonous and deadly. Positively identify onions by their smell, their leaf and flowers.
A good few good identification books can help you get started: Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places by “Wildman” Steve Brill, illustrated by Evelyn Dean in 1994 has good descriptions, stories, and recipe advice; Edible & Medicinal Plants of the Rockies by Linda Kershaw is an excellent ID book with clear photos, descriptions, and warnings.

Topics: edible plants , cacti , "Wildman" Steve Brill