Eat the Weeds: A Forager's Guide to Identifying and Harvesting 274 Wild Foods

by Deane Jordan

Overview

Forage all across the country with this informative guide to 274 edible plants, presented by expert Green Deane.

Eating wild edibles is in our genes, and it can be healthy fun! It’s seasonal, sufficient, varied, and provides plenty of nutrients. It yields the satisfaction born of food independence and competence. There’s no packaging, no labeling, no advertising, and no genetic tinkering involved. But which plants should you eat—and when should you eat them?

Let “Green Deane” Jordan guide you with Eat the Weeds. Green Deane teaches foraging classes and runs a popular foraging website (also called Eat the Weeds). Now he’s sharing his expertise with you. Eat the Weeds presents 274 wild foods and helps you to find, identify, and harvest them. The book begins with an introduction that includes tips for using this comprehensive book. The weeds are organized alphabetically, and an extensive index further helps you find what you’re looking for. Plus, a fascinating and informative table aids in choosing plants based on their notable nutrients!

Perhaps you recognize a shortage in your diet of a specific vitamin and/or mineral. This guide points you to the plants that could remedy it. The information appeals to everyone from foragers, gardeners, and nature-lovers to raw food enthusiasts, vegans, and survivalists. Each entry includes an introduction to the plant and recommended methods for preparing it, as well as its nutritional information. Yes, nearly every featured wild edible includes a full nutrition table! Color photographs and visual descriptions assist you in field identification, and Green Deane’s insights are invaluable, whether you’re a beginning forager or someone with plenty of experience.

Foraging is a treasure hunt, so eat healthier, save money, and have fun while enjoying Earth’s delicious and nutritious bounty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647551797
Publisher:	Adventure Publications, Incorporated
Publication date:	12/05/2023
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

“Green” Deane Jordan is a life-long Greek bachelor with a degree in music and graduate studies in communications. In short, he’s paid to play and write. He is the author of many articles and two other books: 1001 Facts Somebody Screwed Up and 1001 More Facts Somebody Screwed Up. He doesn’t own or watch television, and he is not a vegetarian (a common assumption).

Green Deane’s hobbies include gardening, cooking, collecting cast iron cookware, dancing, canoeing, public speaking, kayaking, cast netting, fishing, biking, hiking in Greece whenever possible, and, of course, foraging for wild foods and other unusual edibles. He has planted over 12 dozen different kinds of edible plants—cultivated and wild—on his small suburban lot in Central Florida, and he maintains a year-round 20' by 20' garden. On his cul-de-sac, he is the only one without a lawn of decapitated grass, much to his neighbors’ collective horror; he thinks of it as green diversity. Green Deane is also a musician and a writer. He is perhaps best known for his popular foraging website, Eat the Weeds.

Read an Excerpt

Yucca
Yucca spp.

Notable Nutrients or Uses: Potassium, vitamin E

Safety Notes: Raw yucca blossoms and fruit can give you a stomachache, so try a little before eating a lot.

Native Status: Yucca’s natural distribution range covers a wide swath of the Americas, from Guatemala north through Mexico to the southwestern US and as far north as western Canada. Yucca is also native northward to the coastal lowlands and dry beach scrub of the southeastern US, along the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic States from coastal Texas to Maryland, and occasionally as far north as New England.

Green Deane’s Itemized Plant Profile

Identification: Y. filamentosa, erect evergreen plant 4–25 feet tall, thick central stem, leaves long, dagger-like, sometimes branched, with shedding threads, flowers tulip-like, waxy, drooping. Fruit to 5 inches long, cylindrical, purple skin and pulp, many seeds. Y. gigantea, a desert species, can grow to 40 feet tall, is single- or multitrunked, and has erect spikes of pendant flowers followed by brown, fleshy fruits to 1 inch long. Y. glauca is a low-growing shrub with white-to-pale-green pendant flowers and shiny black seeds.

Time of Year: Blossoms in late spring or early summer, fruits later in the year in northern climes

Range: Y. filamentosa, as far west as Texas, north to Canada, and east to Massachusetts; also found in Florida. Y. gigantea, across the Desert Southwest from Texas to California and parts south. Y. glauca, from the Southwest north to Alberta

Environment: Y. filamentosa, generally dry (but not arid) areas; other species prefer arid areas.

Method of Preparation: Y. filamentosa, six-sided fruits edible raw or cooked, rubbery and bitter; cooking helps some. Flower petals raw in salads sparingly; may also be batter-dipped and fried, boiled, or roasted. Very young flower stalks peeled and boiled. Seeds roasted, ground, or boiled until tender

Green Deane’s Notes

When isn’t a yucca a yucca? When it’s spelled with one C, as in yuca. What’s the difference? A bellyache, maybe more. The yucca in the wild has several edible parts aboveground. The yuca in the grocery store is a cultivated cassava and has one edible part belowground.

So what parts of the yucca are edible? The flower petals can be eaten raw or cooked, though raw they usually give me a stomachache, at best a throatache. Try eating just one petal—not the whole blossom—and wait 20 minutes. The taste is sweet at first, but if it becomes bitter or burns your throat, the flowers should be cooked; I recommend boiling them for 10 minutes or so. The young fruits are best roasted until tender; they’re edible raw, but again, they tend to be very bitter. Scrape out the pulp and separate it from the seeds. The pulp, sweetened, can be used for pies, either boiled or dried in the oven. The seeds can be roasted (375°F) until dried, ground roughly, or boiled until tender. The young, short flower stalks are also edible, but well before they blossom. Cut into sections, boil for 30 minutes in plenty of water, and peel (you can also peel before cooking).

For survivalists, the yucca provides more than food. Yucca wood—actually, the dried flower stalk—has the lowest kindling temperature of any wood, which is desirable for starting fires, especially if you’re using a bow and drill. (Use the yucca stalk for the drill.) The roots and leaves can be moistened with water and used as a natural soap; the saponins, which make the lather, are also what makes yucca bitter. You can also crush the root of some yuccas and wash your hair with the juice. Plus, the leaves can be made into extremely strong rope.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Geographic Range of the Book

Botany

Basic Plant Anatomy

Invasive Species and Introduced Ones

Know Your Local Foraging Laws and Rules

Deane’s Recommended Plants for Novices

Deane’s Recommended Survival Foods

Toxic Plants: Hemlock, Pokeweed, and more

Staying Safe

Harvesting Ethics and Etiquette

Green Deane’s Notable Nutrients

The Weeds

Glossary

Recommended Reading

Index by Common Name

Taxonomic Index

Subject Index

Photo Credits

About the Author