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Foraging for Nature’s Bounty By Rashelle Brown Have you ever looked at a plant growing in your yard and thought, "I wonder if I could eat that?" Apart from grabbing the odd mulberry from the overhanging branches of my neighbor's tree, the thought had never really entered my mind until last spring, when my wife and I moved onto three acres in Minnesota's Chippewa National Forest. It was the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was surrounded by hundreds of miles of wild land and I suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands. That combination sparked a keen interest in what I might be able to "survive on" in those surrounding woods. I ordered a small library of books and began binge-watching YouTube videos on the topic. A couple of weeks into my new obsession, I positively identified my first wild food, the tree fungus chaga, growing on a dying birch tree near our house. Luckily, the global food supply chain held up and we didn't need to survive on what I could find in the forest. But I remained smitten with foraging, to the point that it has transcended the realm of passing obsession and become what I expect will be a lifelong pursuit. From what I gather (pun intended) via online chat groups and forums, the same is true of most who try it. But Isn't Foraging Dangerous? When I first started foraging, I was really, really leery about it. Stories of people who died after eating a single mushroom, and the slow, agonizing death scene from the film "Into the Wild" almost kept me from even trying it. But armed with a sense of adventure, four books and dozens of hours of online research, I headed out into my backyard and began harvesting nature's bounty. I'm happy to say that I have not had a toxic reaction to anything I have foraged, and I credit that initial healthy dose of fear, along with a promise I made to myself (and my wife) to NEVER eat ANYTHING I hadn't positively identified with 100% accuracy.
Here's what my process looks like:
Whenever I find a new plant I think might be edible, I snap a photo and do a search via Google Lens to give me an idea of what it might be. Then I consult all my foraging books, reading specific details about the subject specimen. After that, I scour the internet for related blog posts and videos. I've found it's particularly important to input "[plant name] toxic look-alike" into your search engine, because that's been instrumental in finding any similar plants I definitely don't want to eat.
Rashelle Brown foraging Chicken of the Woods
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