Wild Edibles

Wild Plant Recipes

Delicious Dandelion Salad: Yours for the Picking (& Cleaning)

The Perfect Ready-to-Pick Dandelion

 

 

One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock, four o’clock chimes Dandelions don’t care about the time Dandelion don’t tell no lies Dandelion will make you wise

–Mick Jagger, Keith Richards

Dandelions are one of the world’s best wild edibles. Whether or not they make you wise, eating dandelions will make you happy because they taste so ...

Continue reading > >

Kale Glut? Make Easy Tart with Fancy Name

A few days ago we left Athens on a sunny 80°F day, warm enough to welcome airport air-conditioning. Thirty-six hours later, back in Anchorage, the sun still shone, but the temperature was only 40°F. A chill north wind cut through the lightweight clothing I’d donned on another continent.

When we arrived ...

Continue reading > >

How to Harvest and Use Edible Spruce Tips (or Pine Tips or Fir Tips)

Spruce Tips Ready to Pick

Spruce tips are one of the more unusual, least used, and tastiest wild edibles in Alaska. Over the last few weeks, I picked a bucketful and had a great time playing and experimenting with them.

(I used spruce tips because they grow in my yard. Pine tips and fir tips are ...

Continue reading > >

Culinary Experiments with Devil’s Club Leaf Buds

I’ve always played with my food and eaten with my fingers. As a child, these habits got me into trouble. As an adult, they led me into the kitchen. There’s no more satisfying way than cooking to play with your food.

My favorite kind of playing with food involves foraging. Rooting ...

Continue reading > >

How to Harvest and Use Fireweed Shoots

Fireweed After the Fire

Fireweed shoot season is upon Southcentral Alaska.

Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) grows along Alaska’s roadways and waste areas (and throughout North America as far south as California in the west and the Carolinas in the east). Spreading rapidly on underground runners, fireweed is one of the first plants to reestablish itself after ...

Continue reading > >

Eggs Rockefeller with Dandelion Greens and Hollandaise

Eggs Rockefeller with Dandelion Greens and Hollandaise

Living so far from our families, we’re nostalgic on Mother’s Day. We call and send flowers, but always wish we could be together in one place. To feel closer to our mothers, we do something special on Mother’s Day.

Last Sunday, we celebrated by making Eggs Rockefeller with Dandelion Greens and ...

Continue reading > >