Wild and Scrumptious

Continuing with our native plant theme, and considering several of our native plants for sale are edible, it seems appropriate to devote a blog to edible native plants. Before delving into this topic, I’d like to be clear that eating plants found in the wild holds some risk and should not be done in a casual manner. If you’re a novice identifying plants or are unsure, it’s best to get a second or third opinion from someone in the know before munching down.

There are many benefits to eating wild plants. First of all it’s free, and as someone on a tight AmeriCorps budget, I’m all for free. Also, generally speaking, plants lose nutritional value the longer they sit after being harvested. So you get more bang for your buck when you eat freshly harvested plants. Depending on values and disposition, it’s also common that people gain a deeper appreciation for the things they eat when they’re able to see their food in its natural environment and gather it themselves.

Being a novice in the subject myself, it seems the best place to start is with plants that are relatively easy to identify and have no poisonous lookalikes. It’s also recommended that one learn the few poisonous plants around in order to better avoid them. The following are just a few examples of the many tasty edible plants you can find in our area:

-Evergreen Huckleberry produces edible berries, which are commonly used to make delicious jelly and jam.

Evergreen Huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum)

-Hooker’s, or tapertip onion has edible flowers and bulbs and can be consumed raw or cooked. While raw this onion is said to be overpowering, it’s purportedly sweet and delectable when cooked.

Hooker's Onion (Allium acuminatum)

-Camas also has edible bulbs which can be eaten raw or cooked. When cooked, they’re known to be sweeter than a sweet potato. The bulbs can also be ground into flour. It should be noted that Camas has a deadly lookalike aptly named "death camas". To avoid any fatal mix-ups, double, triple or even quadruple check to be sure you've got the right camas. It's easiest to distinguish one from the other while they're flowering.

Camas (Camassia)

-Wild licorice was commonly used by Native Americans. They have sweet, fleshy roots which get sweeter when cooked.

Wild Locrice (Glycyrrhiza lepidota)

If you’re like me, your mouth is watering just thinking about those scrumptious local flora and you can’t wait to get out and try your hand at finding, preparing and devouring such delicacies. And, if you’re a novice like me, you probably need to pump your breaks, hard. Not only is it the wrong time of year to be gathering many of these edible plants, but there are also some guidelines everyone should abide by when harvesting wild plants. This list of dos and don’ts is from the Washington State University Snohomish County Extension website (http://ext100.wsu.edu/snohomish/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/73aEdibleWildPlants.pdf):

• Know what you are picking
• Collect only what you can positively identify as edible
• Harvest only plants that look healthy in uncontaminated areas
• Clean and prepare wild foods like you do cultivated crops
• Eat only small quantities when first trying an edible plant
• Get property owners' permission before gathering wild foods
• Never over-harvest. Take only what you can use and use what you take.

If this blog has convinced you to take up gathering wild edible plants, there are plenty of resources online to help you get started. There are also some great field guides worth their weight in edible flora such as A Field Guide to Edible Fruits and Berries of the Pacific Northwest by Richard J. Hebda and Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West by Gregory L. Tilford.

While it’s been raining down here in Wenatchee, the higher elevations have been getting snow which has increased our snowpack in this area to 64% of the 34 year average (ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/wa_swepctnormal_update.pdf).