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Thread: Wild Edibles that actually taste good ??

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    Default Wild Edibles that actually taste good ??

    I do not know much about eating weeds,,,, I see lots of posts about wild edibles but are there any that really taste good ? I know blueberries and the like do,, I guess I am talking about greens mostly... For example,,, does wild lettuce grow a head and taste anything the the lettuce i get at the store ??
    Last edited by Justin Case; 03-14-2011 at 03:04 PM. Reason: add text


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    watercress is great in a salad, clover also great in salad, wild onions are great fried up with my eggs or in salad, I lke to browse on 'sweettarts' (a cloverlike plant that grows along the forest floor here), blueberries any way, blackberries any way plus leaves for tea, wild rose hips for tea, sassafras for tea, persimmons straight or in pie..

    thats pretty much my common browse anyway, I am sure there are many more

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    I like both dandelions and purslane. Both make a great addition to a salad. Dandelions can become bitter so pick young leaves in shade for the best flavor. I add both all summer long to salads. I like tea made from bea balm and pine. And any of the berries are great.
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    me, myself, and I Trabitha's Avatar
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    Tiger lily buds sautéed in butter are YUMMY! We eat that as a side dish a lot in the summer.
    Purslane and Garlic mustard make a WONDERFUl salad that is similar to spinach. I cut the garlic mustard when it's really young...they almost look like violets at that stage.
    Wood Sorrel/clover and Sheep sorrel, have a sour bite to them. They are great to pick at...but you can get sick if you eat a lot of it. I put a bit in my salads too, but it makes a great accent to soups when you have no lemon.

    I'm not a fan of the bitter dandelion...but some people love it.
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    Well I do have a few Pine trees in the yard,, can I make tea from these needles ?

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    The only time I tried Pine tea it was very bitter. In a survival situation it is a great source of vitamin C, and I am sure a couple of others also but from my experience I wouldn't drink it unless I had to. Of course, it is always possible that I did something horribly wrong in my efforts to make tea!

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    Up here in the Interior of Alaska we have tons of wild, good tasting greens. Most are best when picked in early spring, after that they can get bitter and tough. I go for the fireweed stalks early on when they first pop out of the ground and are 3-6 inches tall, raw in salad, cooked or steams like asparagus. lambs quarter is also a healthy, tasty green and similar to spinach. Wild onions as well as many delicious flowers (rose, bluebell, fireweed are good too just to name a few. Later in the summer we go for edible roots (like Indian potato, however, not to be confused with bear root), the very bottom of some varieties of sedge is nice in stir fry, but just eat the tender white bottom of the stalk. And cattail bulbs if you can find any are super cooked up like potatoes. Then, in late fall it is all about berries.

    As always, make sure to positively identify your plants and berries before consuming!

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    around here we have leeks that can spice up a salad. Although your honey probably wont want a kiss from you after eating a few.

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    I can't tell from the picture but pine will have 5 needles coming out of a single stem. The larger picture looks like pine to me. I've never found pine bitter. In fact, it leaves the mouth with a really great clean feeling. I've even had blue spruce. It's good but not worth the trouble because those dang needles are sharp on the spruce.

    Hey, T - I have a bunch of Lilys growing here and decided last fall that I'd try them this year. Are you just eating the buds of the flowers?

    On the dandelions, if you pick them in shade and young you won't have the strong bitter taste that you find in full sun dandys. I've fried the flowers in a batter but it was really a non-event. About the only taste was the batter. I'd certainly eat them if I had too and they add nice color to a meal but otherwise not much worth the effort.

    Nasturtiums are another treat. All parts of the above ground plant are good. The flowers are both sweet and peppery at the same time. The leaves are a bit peppery tasting and just the right size for burgers.
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    Quote Originally Posted by randyt View Post
    around here we have leeks that can spice up a salad. Although your honey probably wont want a kiss from you after eating a few.
    Unless of course you are both eating them! Then it might not matter at all
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alaska Grandma View Post
    Unless of course you are both eating them! Then it might not matter at all
    this is true. you don't ever see any Italian sweethearts concerned about garlic breath LOL.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick View Post

    Hey, T - I have a bunch of Lilys growing here and decided last fall that I'd try them this year. Are you just eating the buds of the flowers?

    On the dandelions, if you pick them in shade and young you won't have the strong bitter taste that you find in full sun dandys. I've fried the flowers in a batter but it was really a non-event. About the only taste was the batter. I'd certainly eat them if I had too and they add nice color to a meal but otherwise not much worth the effort.

    Nasturtiums are another treat. All parts of the above ground plant are good. The flowers are both sweet and peppery at the same time. The leaves are a bit peppery tasting and just the right size for burgers.
    LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Nasturtiums, but I grow them in my herb garden from seed each year. I think they taste like radishes.

    The lily's...yes while they are still buds is when I eat them. Chris puts a nice combo of spices on them like you would green beans. Very good.
    I'll have to try the dandelions like that! Thanks!!!
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    +1 on the Dandelions...Just tried them of late as I have a plenty around here. These were the first thing to green after winter. First I tried the flower just plain it was good! So I harvested a salad fixed it my usual way and it was great! I was surprised! In fact it made up for the lettuce I haven't made any "head" way with growing...
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    Portulaca oleracea (purslane) tastes just like lettuce to me. I think chickweed does too. wild lettuce does not form a head like the stuff at the grocers. Raphanus raphanistrum tastes just like the curly leaf mustards I grow in my garden. Stachys floridana tastes like a sweet green peanut, some roots a bit sweeter than others. It's delicious but make sure you aren't picking the hollow "spent" roots. Oxalis stricta is very tart and I would imagine makes a very nice zest to tea, but I always just eat 'em. gonna have to try it. Blackberries and dewberries are tart to sweet and I eat them a lot, as well as scupplins, muscadines, and bullaces. All very good to eat.
    And then of course there's the venison, squirrel, dove, rabbit, fish... All very wild, very edible, and very good to eat

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    Quote Originally Posted by your_comforting_company View Post
    Portulaca oleracea (purslane) tastes just like lettuce to me. I think chickweed does too. wild lettuce does not form a head like the stuff at the grocers. Raphanus raphanistrum tastes just like the curly leaf mustards I grow in my garden. Stachys floridana tastes like a sweet green peanut, some roots a bit sweeter than others. It's delicious but make sure you aren't picking the hollow "spent" roots. Oxalis stricta is very tart and I would imagine makes a very nice zest to tea, but I always just eat 'em. gonna have to try it. Blackberries and dewberries are tart to sweet and I eat them a lot, as well as scupplins, muscadines, and bullaces. All very good to eat.
    And then of course there's the venison, squirrel, dove, rabbit, fish... All very wild, very edible, and very good to eat
    lol,, Good point,,

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick View Post
    I can't tell from the picture but pine will have 5 needles coming out of a single stem. The larger picture looks like pine to me. I've never found pine bitter. In fact, it leaves the mouth with a really great clean feeling. I've even had blue spruce. It's good but not worth the trouble because those dang needles are sharp on the spruce.
    Alright Rick, now I am going to have to try another batch of pine tea. I will let you know how it goes!

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    I am partial to wild strawberries, persimmons, various berries, water cress, pine nuts, honey, honey suckle, wild apples, wild onions and garlic as well as wild garlic chives. Spruce, sassafrass, birch and maple teas are great. Wild potatos and lettuce are good too. So many greens I cannot even mention.

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    Mat - Everything I've ever read says to break the needles up and put them in boiling water. I've done that but I've also used whole needles and just dropped them in. I really can't tell much difference. If you are a bit tougher than me you might try blue spruce. It has a stronger flavor than pine. A bit more piney flavor. I guess it's the turpines(?) but, as I said, those needles are killers.
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    Not counting mushrooms,ramps, cattail shoots, cattail flower heads, daylily flower buds, autumn olive berries, curly dock, stinging nettle, asparagus, spring beauty roots, common evening primrose flowers and buds, hazelnuts, sorrel.

    Those are just off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's at least 5-10 more that I commonly eat and really do taste good. I've heard people say that wild edibles forthemostpart are not that tasty and not worth the effort learning to ID, find, and prepare them, but that's simply not the case. They're great!

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    There are a lot of wild edibles here in Aus that taste good but most aren't worth the trouble unless you had no other food.
    You have to remember that wild foods haven't had the centuries of selective breeding to make them taste and grow like our usual garden vegetables and fruit so you can't really compare them.

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