Northeast Foraging: 120 Wild and Flavorful Edibles from Beach Plums to Wineberries

by Leda Meredith

Overview

“An invaluable guide for the feast in the East.” —Hank Shaw, author of the James Beard Award–winning website Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

The Northeast offers a veritable feast for foragers, and with Leda Meredith as your trusted guide you will learn how to safely find and identify an abundance of delicious wild plants. The plant profiles in Northeast Foraging include clear, color photographs, identification tips, guidance on how to ethically harvest, and suggestions for eating and preserving. A handy seasonal planner details which plants are available during every season. Thorough, comprehensive, and safe, this is a must-have for foragers in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Rhode Island.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604696011
Publisher:	Timber Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/08/2014
Series:	Regional Foraging Series
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	308
Sales rank:	899,798
File size:	30 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Leda Meredith is a lifelong forager and a certified ethnobotanist. She is an instructor at the New York Botanical Garden and at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, specializing in edible and medicinal plants. The author of four other books, Meredith writes for Mother Earth News and leads tours internationally for organizations including Slow Food, Green Edge, Cornell University, and Purchase University.

Read an Excerpt

Preface: Confessions of a Lifelong Forager
“Yes, that’s the right plant. We’re going to cook the leaves tonight with a little garlic and olive oil, then we’ll add a little lemon juice and—” My great-grandmother pressed the four fingers and thumb of one hand together and brought the fingertips to her lips for a smacking kiss. Her eyes sparkled with the anticipated pleasure of eating the dandelion greens I’d just helped her pick. We were in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and I was three years old.
    
Great-grandma was from Greece, where to this day foraging for wild edible plants is part of the culture, as it is in many other countries. I doubt she ever learned the word foraging. To her, going out to pick the free, choice vegetables growing wild nearby was a normal thing to do. And naturally, she wanted to teach her great-granddaughter which plants were not only safe to eat, but tasty. And because she was excited about them, I was, too.
    
Excited is an apt way to describe how I feel to this day about foraging for wild edible plants. I get excited when I happen upon an unexpected, wonderful food find such as the abundant patch of mayapples I found this past summer. I get excited as each new ingredient comes into season—and into my kitchen and onto my taste buds. 
    
When I travel I sometimes get to taste a wild food for the first time, something that only grows there, and that, too, is exciting—I love learning what here tastes like. I am as passionate about edible wild plants today as my great-grandma was.
    
Home to me for the past several decades has been New York; this book is about plants found in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, as well as Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, Canada.
    
I love to see my students interact with our northeastern landscape in that special, seasonal way that experienced foragers enjoy. Is it June? Why then, they’re beelining for the mulberry trees. But a month later they’ll be zipping past the no-longer-fruiting mulberries—and heading for the wineberries, whose season has just begun.
    
It is also delightful when a visitor to the Northeast is excited by their first chance to identify and eat the unique wild edible plants that are indigenous to this region.
    
I wish I could be with you in the field when you open up this book to help identify a plant you think just might be a choice wild edible. I’d love to see the sparkle in your eyes when you confirm that yes, it is a tasty discovery. 
    
But know that I’ll be with you in spirit, giving you two thumbs up while you pause to consider harvesting the plant in a way that is beneficial to the natural landscape. And I’ll be grinning right along with you the first time you taste it.

Table of Contents

Preface: Confessions of a Lifelong Forager 8

Foraging Well: An Introduction 10

Wild Harvests Season by Season 18

Wild Edible Plants of the Northeast 28

amaranth 29

American hazelnut, filbert 32

American persimmon 34

apple 36

Asiatic dayflower 38

asparagus 40

basswood, linden 42

beach plum 45

beebalm, bergamot 46

birch 48

blackberry 50

black cherry 52

black nightshade 54

black raspberry 56

black walnut 58

blueberry 60

burdock 62

butternut 65

cattail 67

chickweed 70

chicory 73

common mallow 75

Cornelian cherry 78

cow parsnip 80

crabapple 82

cranberry 84

curly dock 86

currant 88

dandelion 90

daylily 93

eastern redbud 96

elderberry 98

epazote 101

evening primrose 103

false Solomon's seal 106

field garlic 108

fragrant sumac 111

garlic mustard 113

ginkgo 116

glasswort, samphire, sea bean 120

goldenrod 121

goutweed, bishop's elder 123

grape 125

greenbrier 127

hawthorn 129

henbit 131

hickory 133

highbush cranberry 135

honewort 137

hopniss, groundnut 139

Japanese knotweed 142

Jerusalem artichoke, sunchoke 145

jewelweed 147

juneberry, serviceberry 149

juniper 151

lady's thumb 153

lamb's quarters 155

lotus 157

maple 161

mayapple 165

melilot, sweet clover 167

milkweed 169

mint 172

mugwort, cronewort 174

mulberry 176

mustard 179

nettle 181

New England aster 183

northern bayberry 185

oak 187

ostrich fern 190

oxeye daisy, marguerite 192

parsnip 194

pawpaw 196

peach 198

pear 200

peppergrass 202

pickerelweed 204

pineappleweed 206

plantain 208

pokeweed 210

purple-flowering raspberry 213

purslane 215

quickweed 217

ramps, wild leek 219

red clover 221

red raspberry 223

rose 225

salsify, oyster plant 228

saltbush, orache 230

sassafras 232

sheep sorrel 234

shepherd's purse 236

shiso, beefsteak plant 238

Siberian elm 240

silverberry, autumn olive, autumnberry 243

Solomon's seal 245

sow thistle 248

spicebush 250

sumac 253

sweet fern 256

thistle 258

trout lily, fawn lily, dog tooth violet 260

violet 262

wapato, arrowhead, katniss 265

watercress 268

white clover 270

wild carrot, Queen Anne's lace 272

wild ginger 275

wild lettuce 277

wild plum 279

wild strawberry 281

wineberry 283

wintercress 285

wintergreen 287

wood sorrel 289

yarrow 291

Metric Conversions 294

Useful Internet Resources for Foragers 294

Useful Books for Foragers 295

Useful Tools for Foragers 295

Acknowledgments 296

Photography Credits 297

Index 298

Editorial Reviews

Although I have over 200 books on foraging in my collection, I would rate this as one of the very best.” —Wildness Magazine

“Northeast Foraging is detailed, accessible, and useful to new and experienced foragers alike.” —NYBG’s Plant Talk

“Leda Meredith’s personable field guide is as close as you can come to having the author take you by the hand.” —Gary Lincoff, author of The Joy of Foraging and instructor at The New York Botanical Garden

“An invaluable guide for the feast in the East.” —Hank Shaw, author of the James Beard Award–winning website Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

“A wonderful, thorough guide for both beginners and seasoned foragers.” —Tom Kearney, chef at The Farm on Adderley

“It’s the most comprehensive.” —Sean Patrick Morrison. chef at Plate

From the Publisher

Although I have over 200 books on foraging in my collection, I would rate this as one of the very best.”

Wildness

02/01/2014
Ethnobotanist Meredith (The Locavore's Handbook: The Busy Person's Guide to Eating Local) is your guide to nature's bounty in the Northeast, defined here as running from Quebec down through Maryland. She begins with an introduction to foraging, including benefits, ethics, and sustainable practices, and follows with a season-by-season guide to foraging subdivided by habitat (meadows, woodlands, etc.). The bulk of the book are the profiles (alphabetical by common name) of over 100 wild and naturalized edible plants, including fruits, nuts, berries, greens, flowers, and roots. Each entry includes information on how to identify, gather, eat, and preserve the plant, plus at least one lovely full-color photo, tips for harvesting sustainably, and warnings about any toxic parts or look-alike plants. While Meredith's detailed descriptions will aid identification, the book would have been more helpful if it included photographs emphasizing distinguishing characteristics. The attractive images included do not show enough detail to facilitate positive identification. (This is a problem found in most foraging books.) Meredith mentions medicinal as well as culinary uses where applicable but with little detail. Readers interested in the medicinal properties of plants should consult a guide specific to that topic. VERDICT This manual is recommended, in spite of the above lack, for anyone in the Northeast who is interested in expanding their culinary horizons through foraging.—Janet Crum, Northern Arizona Univ. Lib., Flagstaff

Library Journal