Photo courtesy of Gary’s personal website I’m traveling in Arizona right now, and was fortunate enough to meet up with Gary Paul Nabhan at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. He is the director of the Center for Sustainable Environments (CSE), founder of the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Project, acclaimed author, and an inspiring champion […]
Nothing like a magic ball to lift your spirits! Over Christmas I took a trip to visit family in Durango, CO. Shopping in the local co-op I had an ecstatic moment when I saw a local company selling wild food products. I immediately called them on the phone and was greeted by a lovely woman […]
What better wild food plant to highlight for Valentine’s than Toyon berries! Their luscious red berries are just screaming to be noticed. It’s the middle of winter and there they are yelling, “Look at me, look at me.” They’re the wildly flirtatious side of Valentine’s that I think of. Toyon berries are edible raw, but […]
Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) is apparently the plant that Hollywood was named after. No one knows for sure, but when the settlers came to the Hollywood area, they apparently thought this shrub/small tree looked like the holly plants back home in Europe….hence the name Hollywood. Toyon is also called Christmas Berry because its little red berries […]
Camellia goat cheese from Redwood Hill Farm, Crottin goat cheese from Redwood Hill Farm and Cyprus Grove Chevre goat cheese are nice, locally produced cheeses to compliment these curly dock (Rumex crispus) seed crackers. Producing up to 40,000 seeds per plant, curly dock (Rumex crispus) seeds can be harvested anytime after they have dried on […]
Christopher Nyerges (left) pictured with his brother Richard Nyerges (right) Christopher Nyerges has been teaching wild food plant and survival/primitive skills classes in the Los Angeles area since 1974. Richard Nyerges is a long-term volunteer with the Angeles National Forest, who just happened upon our wild food outing in the Angeles National Forest on Saturday, […]
So here’s the Wild American version of soba noodles. In Japan, these thin noodles are oftentimes hand-crafted, the more buckwheat used the more desirable they are. Mine are a bit rough, but the slightly sweet flavor of the California buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum) is amazing, and it’s just so fun to eat something that grows wild […]
I actually found a few Calfornia buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum) flowers in bloom on the trail to Eagle Rock, in Topanga Canyon State Park, last weekend. This really speaks to the amazing biodiversity of this plant. I’ve been harvesting it since September, and will continue to do so until the rains wash the seeds away. This […]
Welcome to wildfoodplants.com! I hope together we can create an organized, worldwide movement of people interested in wild food plants. Today is celebrated by Pagans as Imbolc, and Christians as St. Brigid’s Day. Regardless of how it is defined, today’s full moon reflects the fires which have begun to stir deeply within Mother Earth. It […]
On January 27th over 10 brave souls earned their Hard Core Wild Food Foraging badges. Half the class had cancelled due to the torrential rain we were getting, but these folks braved it all. Shuttling back and forth with a friends 4-wheel drive, we got all the cars out of the muddy one mile driveway….except […]
Despite its common name as cowboy cologne, California Sagebrush (Artemisia californica) is used by Native Americans predominantly as a woman’s plant. This evergreen shrub, found in the foothills of California’s coastal sage scrub plant community, is abundant and wonderfully aromatic. Its dried out silver-green leaves are narrow and cluster in bunches. I have really come […]
Who says we have to limit wild food plants to just gastronomique delights? Our skin happens to be our largest organ, and it ‘eats’ and absorbs what we put on it. When I was introduced to California Sagebrush (Artemisia californica) I had to let out a big yeehaw! It is commonly known as cowboy cologne, […]
