Foraging along the Charles
Hey, if it's good enough for the geese, it's good enough for the woman Tammy spotted:
... An Asian woman was foraging for greens along the banks of the Charles carrying a large shopping bag full of them. Since she didn't look crazy, I stopped to ask what she was picking.
She didn't speak any English, but she showed me a particular plant that was growing in bushy clumps along the riverbank and gestured that you could eat it. It seemed like something I might have seen before, with leaves in threes that were pointy and jagged on the edges like parsley, but floppy like cilantro. It tasted like grassy sage. I tried to find out what it was called or what she did with it, but really nothing was getting through. ...
Meanwhile, Steve Sherlock asks you to be vewwy, vewwy quiet, because he's hunting dandelions.
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different land, different food
Do be careful about what is foraged by someone from another country. There are foods that are edible in other countries that look very much like inedible foods in other places. There's an Asian mushroom that is popularly foraged and eaten there and looks very much like an extremely poisonous North American mushroom. Asian immigrants are poisoned every year this way.
Egad
I never expected to see "Dining" and "Charles River" tagged on the same article ever in my life...and I hope I never see it again.
Angel of Death, Morel Less
There is an edible mushroom in the Northwest that has a lethal look-alike known as the Angel of Death that can destroy yer insides. The classic dinner party nightmare gone wayyyy bad happens with alarming frequency.
Valereee is right: look it up before you munch. It could be just dandy-lion, or it could be something that looks like something that grandma immigrant ate back home and is to die from. Take some and go all google on it.
Consider the place where you are picking stuff as well - toxics levels can be considerable in things taken from areas that are sprayed with herbicides and insecticides on a regular basis, and there may be accumulations of heavy metals and persistant organic pollutants in the soils along waterways and roadways.
Is it fiddlehead season, yet?
Fiddleheads
Yes indeedy - I got mine from Russo's in Watertown last weekend and made a lovely pasta dinner last night with fiddleheads, asparagus, button mushrooms, toasted pine nuts, shallots, garlic, thyme, a slosh of dry vermouth and lemon zest. I had intended to save some leftovers for lunch today, but there weren't any.