Here is a long-overdue video from my time spent in the Appalachian Mountains with Doug Elliott and Frank Cook, during the late part of April. I attended an absolutely wonderful wild plant retreat with these gentle giants of the plant world and learned so much from them both. Doug is a gifted mountain man who, in addition to his knowledge of the natural world, shares his enthusiasm for it through stories and song. He is a national treasure…keeping the stories and songs alive, and I would encourage you to visit his website www.dougelliott.com to see the wide range of CD’s and books he has available. Doug is a tender-hearted man, with a lifetime of experience living off the land and staying attuned to the plant world.

One of my favorite things I learned from him was that when you are walking through the forest and you go through a spiderweb…well, that’s the forest imprinting your face! And when you step over one of those rocks that tips and wobbles a bit…well, that’s the forest figuring out how much you weigh! And finally, when you stumble upon one of those jack (or jill) in the pulpit’s…well, that’s the microphone of the forest and they’re listening to your words. It’s alive!!! Please check Doug’s website for his class schedules, and stay tuned for part two.

Wildman Steve Brill is the central character to probably the most widely known modern day wild food story ever told. It’s become legendary, and if you don’t know it…here it is:

Wildman was teaching a foraging class in New York City’s Central Park in 1986. The New York City Parks Commissioner was not happy this crazy bearded fellow was doing such a thing and put 2 undercover park rangers hot on his trail. A couple show up for one of Wildman’s nature tour’s, saying they’re married, and keep taking pictures on the tour. When Wildman bends down and picks a dandelion leaf the man goes behind a tree, says something on his walkie talkie, and immediately Wildman is surrounded by NYC park rangers who cuff him and search his belongings. He’s arrested, cited a violation for ‘Criminal Mischief for Removing Vegetation From the Park’, and faces a fine and up to one year in jail. Wildman calls every news agency he can and finds himself front and center of a media frenzy. He’s on the CBS Evening News, Late Night with David Letterman, BBC, front page of the Chicago Sun, etc. Wildman serves his Dandelion Five Boro salad on the steps of the Manhattan Criminal Court before his appearance. Meanwhile, the NYC Mayor receives so many angry letters that the charges are dropped and Wildman gets hired to teach wild food tours in Central Park!

Wildman also loves to cook. In the video above he shares a new experiment with cooking common plantain (Plantago major). Although he’s still experimenting, and says he would like to parboil and dry the leaves before roasting them next time, here’s an idea of a new recipe he’s coming up with. He washed and dried the leaves and preheated an oven to 425 degrees. The leaves were coated with sesame seed oil, ground caraway seeds, ground fennel seeds, ground nutmeg, and salt. Stirred regularly and baked for roughly 6-10 minutes. Check out his cookbook, The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook.

Imagine a world where children learn about and eat wild foods!

Here’s a video, done by a cool cooking web show called Kitchen Caravan, on Leda Meredith. There are actually 4 video’s to view, but this one highlights Leda harvesting wild field garlic (Allium vineale). This plant is widespread, and can be used similarly to chives (tops) or garlic (bulbs). Leda is currently challenging herself to eat foods from within a 250 mile radius of her home in Brooklyn, New York. In her blog, Leda’s Urban Homestead, she writes about her experiences on this diet. You can click here to view a post I did shortly after she started her challenge last summer. Be sure to check her website, as she offers classes on wild foods and domesticated plants.

Nat Bletter, ethnobotanist, is taking right action. So many in his field are working to manipulate indigenous medicinal plant knowledge, but Nat has a very respectful approach and sincere desire to help humanity with the knowledge he holds. He’s currently finishing his dissertation on the ‘Quantitative Cross-Cultural Medical Ethnobotany of Peru and Mali’. People like himself are wooed by pharmaceutical companies, but this go-getter is instead forming both a raw chocolate company and a company which uses our invasive species.

Nat is an excellent forager in New York City, and offers classes in both ethnobotany and foraging. He recently started a blog, The Quest for Khao Soi, to document his adventures searching for his favorite Thai dish. Our intersecting relationships with plants is incredibly fascinating, as we certainly shape eachother. Check out the video above…where Nat discusses intellectual property rights, takes us through a few New York City parks to forage, and cooks up a delicious meal of burdock root/burdock petiol’s/pokeweed greens covered with shepard’s purse/garlic mustard root topping, sauteed mulberry leaves, a chickweed/shepard’s purse/garlic mustard/wild chive/redbud salad, california bay laurel nut chocolate, and roasted Kentucky bean ‘coffee’!

(photo courtesy of Langdon Cook)

Check this out!
Langdon Cook, located in the Seattle area, has been going wild with his new blog Fat of the Land. Langdon’s blog is very well written, and will keep pacific northwesterners abreast of seasonally available wild foods, along with delicious recipes to prepare them. He’s currently working on a book titled Fat of the Land and says, “The book will be very different from the blog – with more in-depth, character-driven narratives about foraging. Each chapter will focus on my efforts (and misadventures) to harvest a specific species, with healthy doses of natural history and conservation thrown in for good measure. Like the blog, the book will also have recipes.” Yeehaw!

So, how did Langdon get into this foraging lifestyle?
After a move to Seattle in 1991, he found himself easily strewn among the outdoorsy types, iconoclasts and other non-joiners the area is famous for. After a year living off-grid in southwestern Oregon, his confidence and experiences grew. He is now trying to peek outside the consumer food box as we know it, convince a few skeptics, and bottom line: have some fun! Langdon says, “You have to bone up on the life history of the species…this is gumshoe detective work at its heart. Once you hit paydirt, the next thing is to learn how to cook your catch. The entire progression jazzes me, from studying at home, pouring over maps, laying plans, going out into the field, and returning with free, nutritious booty to cook up into delicious meals.”

Since it ‘tis the season for dandelions for so many folks right now, click here to read one of his posts about dandelions as a superfood. In addition, he gives recipes for dandelion delivery cookies, dandy burgers, dandy muffins and bread, a dandelicious omelet and fried dandies. Stay tuned for more from this phat forager!

Happy Beltane! I hope you are all out doing some wild exuberant dancing with the maypole. May Day has been celebrated by earth-centered cultures for many a year, and it marks the midway point between spring equinox and summer solstice. I’m here in the Appalachian Mountains…and are they incredible! The other night I had a very cool experience with some of the Grandfather Spirits of these, the oldest mountains in North America. They were hungry.

A few days ago I was able to meet up with my cousin Ila Hatter. She’s a wonderful woman who I’m honored to call family – click here to read an article I wrote about Ila last year. The video above highlights Ila’s knowledge about uganost (there are several ways of spelling sweet in Cherokee), which is each individual Cherokee families blend of their favorite spring greens. I learned many new plants on this walk with Ila. Ila also covers some very important guidelines when foraging for food and medicine, as well as the necessity in saying thank you and leaving a gift for the plants you are gathering. Alrighty, I hope you are all living in joyful abundance this May Day, with your own personal uganost blends.

Had the great priviledge of meeting up with Nancy Basket, of Kudzu Kabin Designs. Nancy holds strong to her Cherokee roots and shares not only general information about kudzu’s ediblity and usefulness, but also weaves kudzu’s story into a Cherokee legend that teaches about right living in the world.

I’ve been having a lot of fun getting to know kudzu (Pueraria lobata) down here in the south. The leaves and root starch powder have made their way into a variety of my dishes; fermented kudzu leaves for kudzu dolmas, kudzu alfredo, kudzu omelette’s, kudzu tempura chips, kudzu cider…and more!

Be sure to watch for my upcoming show, Hot on the Trail with Sunny Savage, on Veria channel 9575 on DISH. We’ve dedicated an entire episode to ‘the vine that ate the south’. One use that has really caught my attention, as well as many in the medical field, is kudzu’s use in the treatment of alcoholism…as well as to decrease alcohol consumption for the person who occasionally partaketh. There are many references to its benefits, and the Harvard Medical School study that got the buzz going, through either PubMed or Highwire.

Kudzu Tempura
1 cup flour of your choice
1 Tbsp kudzu powder (called kuzu powder in stores)
dash salt
1 cup cold water

Mix dry ingredients thoroughly. Then add water and stir completely to get all lumps out. This will give you a beautiful tempura batter than can be used to fry kudzu leaves themselves…elderflowers…dandelion flowers…etc. I’ve fallen in love with using pecan oil here in the south. It’s a wonderful oil that holds up well in high heat.

You heard it here…I got myself a wild food television show!
It’s called Hot on the Trail with Sunny Savage.
Have sold my Prius, let go of my apartment in California, and hit the road runnin’ in a 34’ motorhome. Never thought I would be living in an RV…ever…even if it does run on biodiesel, solar panels, and is eco-outfitted on the inside. Will be on the road for the next 8 months, filming 26 episodes all across the US, for Veria.
The Veria network, channel 9575, airs on DISH and is dedicated to living life, naturally.

I don’t know when Veria will start airing the show, but will keep you posted. If you already get DISH, you can simply call and ask to subscribe to channel 9575. If you aren’t a TV person, or don’t get DISH, I would recommend contacting Veria at 1-866-918-3742 and requesting that the show be made into DVD’s, or online internet TV subscriptions. It’s going to be an awesome show, which I can say since it truly takes a team of people to put something like this together. We have an amazing group of folks producing it from Fusion Productions.

One very cool thing about getting paid to travel around the country doing a show like this is that I am connecting with amazing wild food folks from around the nation. Stay tuned to my website as I document some of these wild people who are willing to open their lives to us. Highlighted in this video is Lionel Key, Jr.. Lionel has been making file powder for over 20 years, in a huge mortar & pestle that has been used by his family since 1904. File is simply crushed wild sassafras leaves (Sassafras albidum). Lionel wildcrafts the leaves near his home in Baton Rouge, LA… and the finished file powder can then be purchased on his website: www.unclebillspices.com.

Have reposted this video, as it shows common milkweed (Ascelpias syriaca) in bloom in the Minot, ND area last summer. I was visiting my family there, and it’s good to go back to those family memories (my mom is walking in the background during the milkweed part). Click here to see the post that went with the video.

Milkweed has long been a favorite plant. I’ve always dreamed of getting a milkweed-stuffed down comforter from the Ogallala Comfort Company. Their Hypodown® 20:80 mix of A. syriaca and goose down is guaranteed to be reaction free for TEN years and has an even longer overall guarantee. Herb Knudsen started the Natural Fibers Corporation in 1986, of which Ogalla Down is a division. They have now started a new division called Ogallala Escapes, which offers beauty products made with the pressed oil of A. syriaca seeds.

I’ve never bought many beauty products in my life, preferring to make my own, but Ogallala Escapes sent me a beautiful spa package containing many of their products with syriaca oil. These are the most divine skin products i’ve used…and it’s soooo cool to be using this plant externally on my body. Another way I use the plant externally is for its milky/latexy sap, which is great for removing moles/warts/age spots, after some time of applying it daily.

Ascelpias is the Greek God of Healing, syriaca means “of syria”. This is interesting since the plant is native here in North America. My father lived in Syria for a few years and I was able to travel around that country with him. Sitting at the end of the Silk Road I somehow think our common milkweed may someday be recognized for its riches. The syriaca oil is full of rich moisturizers, Vitamin E, and unique fatty acids. One of those beneficial and interesting fatty acids is cis-vaccenic, which is found in young skin but diminishes as we age.

Mae West’s Two Bags Save One Life! life vests during WWII were filled with milkweed floss. The USDA gave onion sacks to millions of American schoolkids, encouraging them to help the war efforts by gathering the floss, which ended up filling over one million Mae West life vests. Native Americans didn’t employ their children to gather milkweed floss for war, but rather widely used it to swaddle their young. It’s been used by the French since the 1600’s.

This perennial plant, widely distributed around the US, has a beautiful wild spirit. I love the Mae West connection, as she and I share a birthday and she’s the only star I’ve gone to see on the Hollywood Walk of Fame while living in the LA-area. It’s all about a girl who lost her reputation and never gave a damn! -Mae West

Happy Spring Equinox!

There are some powerful energies moving through the planet…so hopefully you’re all out eating some yummy wild foods to help the body adjust more easily. I’m participating again this year in the annual Solar Wave, a stellar synchronized 24-hour global equinox event on Friday’s full moon. Check it out here.

There are so many cool activities going on out there, and as we step into spring I would encourage you to take a look at the Wild Food Events/Festivals section of my website (under the Resources Tab), for a current listing of wild food events. If you know of other events that would be appropriate for this list, please let me know.

My new wild food friend Nat Bletter, PhD out in New York City is offering a class I would love to take. He will be teaching Ethnobotany: Cultural Uses of Plants at the New York Botanical Garden. This 20-hour course explores how plants are a part of daily human life. The social, historical, cultural, ecological, and economic impacts of people-plant interactions around the world will be discussed. In addition, Nat also leads wild food walks in the New York City area. Nat has not yet set his spring/summer wild food walk schedule…so be sure to check back on the Wild Food Events/Festivals section of my website (under the Resources Tab) to find out when his classes are offered.