I Love Finding Stuff To Eat

If I thought about when I started foraging I'd have to go back to my adolescence, spending summers on the Rhode Island beaches. My first memories of collecting small snails in the tidal pools, steaming them in sea water as we barbequed on the beach. They wouldn't fill you up but just the feeling I got at that young age of how cool it was to harvest something and eat it. Another favorite was digging clams with my mother. We kids got our share but mom was the expert. She had a system of walking along the beach in a few inches of water, she'd spot the two tell-tale siphon holes, start digging with a twisting motion with her toes and when she made contact with the clam she'd finish digging & retrieving it with her hand. Now these weren't the smaller little necks or what they referred to as Quahogs in RI but the larger sea clams that would fill your hand. A bit tough to steam and eat, these babies were turned into stuffed clams(Stuffies) or our favorite, Manhattan Clam Chowder. To this day I have not been able to replicate this soup, a combination I'm sure of the type of clam and my mother's recipe.

Five decades later and being able to gather and prepare food that I have either hunted, fished, foraged or grown is still immensely satisfying. Mushroom hunting is probably the foraged edible I'm most interested in. It began about 25 years ago and didn't get off to a good start. I remember my first outing in a forest where I regularly hunt for whitetail deer, pheasant & turkey. I'd noticed a lot of mushroom activity so I headed into the woods with knife, paper shopping bag & my Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms. I came home with dozens of specimens of fungi only to be so overwhelmed with identifying any of them. It took Chanterelles(Cantharellus Cibarius) growing in my own yard to be the first mushrooms that I would identify and ultimately consume. They actually pop up at least once if not more often annually and I long ago gave up any hope of having a manicured lawn so these golden beauties are pesticide free & quite tasty. As for any other varieties, my interest waned for quite a few years.             

Jump ahead to 2017, it was August and we were having a very wet & mild summer. I noticed one morning driving to work that the forest floor was littered with mushrooms of assorted varieties and the way the light was, they just seemed to glow. On the way home I stopped to have a look. On this exploratory venture I decided to take different approach than the one so many years ago. I restricted myself to only 1 or 2 samples to identify so as not to get overwhelmed. I would just try and pin down one at a time, take the time and do it right and be 100% sure of what I had, after all ID-ing fungi was nice but ultimately I was after table fare. I did manage to collect & identify a few varieties, some not edible and some edible but not choice. A week or so later I was in different area & I just about walked over a patch of Black Trumpet Mushrooms(Craterellus Fallax),  a very difficult type to pick out on the ground because of their size and how they blend in. I was fairly confident of my discovery so I collected a small amount. I went through my normal procedure of identification and confirmed my find. I cooked a small amount butter & a little salt. They tasted wonderful with an earthy & woodsy flavor. 

                                                                                                      

In the next few years I would ID a few more choice edibles, Chicken of the Woods(Laetiporus Sulfureus), Honey Mushroom(Armillaria Mellea) and Hen of the Woods(Grifola Frondosa). I don't think we've had as good conditions as 2017 but that's foraging, always something different going on, places I've made good finds in the past, mushrooms haven't returned since. I will however always be on the lookout for edibles when I'm out in the field. On one of my recent excursions I made a good haul of some Honey's and proceeded to cook them over an open fire, packaged and froze them for some future dishes.

There are so many varieties of edible foraged food out there and I am very happy with finding and correctly identifying one at a time and add it to my growing list.