Top Wild About Foraging Posts on Hunger and Thirst 2010

A few years back, I quit a fancy laboratory job because I felt trapped, always stealing glances out the window, my soul screaming to be outside. And now, to a large extent, those daydreams are being fulfilled. My fat tires kick up dust on the trail, and you can often find me wandering beneath blankets of fir and ponderosa. So it just makes good sense that while I'm out and about, exploring my environment, that I should be collecting for wildcrafts as well. Foraging has deepened my connection to this beautiful place where I live, has forced me to become intimate with her rhythms and tides.

So it's no longer just a playful thing for me to cook with found foods, it's an expression of who I am, because I am so very much of this place. My cells are made of these Rocky Mountains, my compass always points me back home.

I have so many wonderful memories of the wild foods I've even over this last year. Please share a few of my favorite discoveries from the year.


Morel Mushrooms - I'm not sure I would have been bitten by the foraging bug as hard as I was if it hadn't been for morel mushrooms. I was completely dumbfounded to find a gourmet ingredient that I'd always dreamed of tasting. And there they were, growing next to a little tree, looking like tiny aliens. And they tasted far better than I could have even imagined.
Cattail pollen - I was about to write off cattail pollen as not worth the effort ... until I tried cattail pollen pancakes, which are nothing short of magical. Ok, so you like pancakes? Well, imagine them tasting like the best flower you've ever smelled.
Milkweed Pods - My new favorite food to stuff.
Boletus Edulis - I was only vaguely interested in mushrooming until I found my first bolete. From here on, you can only consider me mad for mushrooms.
Evening Primrose Root - So mysterious and spicy, and makes better "horseradish" than the horseradish I grew in my garden.
Dock - The humble leaf that has made me reconsider my need to grow green leafies in my garden.
Squirrel - Do you like sweet and succulent meat? Squirrel - it's the other dark meat.

Hungry for more foraged foods?  Check out this list of wild foods that I sampled last year.

I'm sharing this review with the Hearth and Soul hop,  Real Food Deals (hooray, I love a bargain!), Pennywise Platter, Real Food Wednesday.