Wild About - Onions

Here is a good all-around food to forage - wild onions (Allium spp.). I think hardly a day goes by that I don't cook at least one dish using onions. Have you ever grown any sort of onion, even ornamental varieties in your garden? If so, you'll recognize the starburst of pink or white flowers. The variety shown in these pictures tends to nod toward the ground, making them especially easy to recognize.

With wild onion, any part that is tender is edible; the roots and flowers are particularly delicious. Use them in dishes as you would any onion. I cooked the bulbs up with roasted veg last night, and used the flowers in a salad.

This wild forage requires a note of caution. It is safest to harvest wild onions while they are flowering, so that you are sure to recognize them as onions; they resemble many toxic plants, particularly the death camas, when immature. The surest indication that you have an onion is the unmistakable onion smell, only onions smell like that (and be certain you aren't just smelling contamination on your fingers from previous picking).


Wow, we've now reached deep into the heart of the growing season. Take a look back at some of the other wonderful wild foods that I've collected this year.