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.
(Photo from the Encyclopedia of Stanford Trees, Shrubs, and Vines)
Another great video below by FeralKevin. When I moved to California in September of 2006 I went crazy for Californai Bay Laurel nuts (Umbellularia Californica). I love FeralKevin’s analogy to cacao nibs in the video below, as that was exactly how I used them. For my Master’s graduation party I made huge batches of truffles with them…roasting off the nuts and blending with powdered sugar and cream. Their natural stimulating/caffeine-like properties made for a wild party!
This video is having a hard time showing here, so click here to access it on FeralKevin’s website.
Click here for a great article co-authored by my good friend Cecilia Garcia. She is an amazing plant person and Chumash healer. She has told me that the California Bay Laurel nuts are only eaten during the change of season and that they help your body adjust to those new energies. Cecilia and Dr. James Adams teamed up for a book called Healing with Medicinal Plants of the West-Cultural and Scientific Basis for their Use, but she just emailed me to say they have sold all their copies with no money for reprinting. If anyone has access to publishing grants, or other funding sources, please email me….we don’t want to lose access to this book!
Here is another great resource for California Bay Laurel by Tamara Wilder
Just found FeralKevin website. It highlights rewilding, edible wild food, and permaculture topics. I so wanted to do an acorn video this fall/winter, but never got around to it. Click here to read a write-up by FeralKevin on the importance of acorns as a staple food, or watch the video below that he did.
It’s been raining in southern California….FINALLY! That means mushrooms. Check out this chanterelle a friend harvested in Topanga. It was divine sauteed with chickweed and young sow thistle greens.
These four trilogies form the Andean cross, and are based on a deep cosmology connected with the southern cross constellation. Another blessed trip to Peru with the chakana to guide my way! The photo is of the Sacred Leaf of the Incas, also known as coca. The western mind thinks of it as a drug, but that is only after it has been demoralized and mixed with harsh chemicals to make cocaine. It is sacred to the Andean People, and studies by Dr. Jim Duke have found it to be high in antioxidants, beta carotene, iron and calcium.
Freddy Munoz, from Llama Path is highlighted in the video above. He helped to connect my family more deeply with the land and the spirit of the Inkas. It also brought home how important it is to love your work. In this, the energy of the first new moon of the New Year and all its Capricornian influence, may you live your passion and set goals of responsible/truthful/focused work…with integrity.
aaaaaah Hawai’i. My family has lived there for nearly 30 years and I’ve never been to visit! I planned to do a detailed video on limu (sea vegetables), but the weather didn’t cooperate. So, unlike all my other unfinished videos I decided to share this one….and give my show a new name. The video is not complete, but gives information on ‘ulu, or Hawaiian breadfruit. This mega-producer is known as Artocarpus altilis to botanists, and has been recorded producing up to 700 fruits per year…reaching the size of a human head. Welcome to Savage in the Wild!
Fresh food is a signature of the tropics. There are less than a dozen native Hawaiian plants that are edible, but the Polynesians brought many edible, useful and medicinal plants with them and they are known as canoe plants. Click here to learn about uses and preparation of ‘ulu. I harvested my first ‘ulu with the help of Bonnie Kerr-Pilon at the Hana Cultural Center & Museum. She has written and illustrated a fabulous cookbook called The Sensual World: Tropical Garden Cookbook from her experiences living 90% off her land near Hana, Maui. I would also recommend Hawaiian Breadfruit: Ethnobotany, Nutrition, and Human Ecology, which you can purchase through the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kauai. And finally the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation has a great cookbook and guide to using local produce called, The Hawai’i Farmers Market Cookbook: Fresh Island Products from A to Z.. The following recipe comes from Bonnie’s book:
Savory Breadfruit
1 Breadfruit – firm yet yielding, chopped 3 c coconut milk 1 large onion, chopped 1 tsp salt 12 oz firm tofu, mashed (optional)
Chop onion and line bottom of large cooking pot with it. Crush tofu with fork and arrange on top of onion. Peel breadfruit (you don’t have to), cut it in half and remove center core. Cut into 1” cubes and layer on top of onions and tofu. Sprinkle on salt. Pour enough coconut milk to cover the breadfruit. Cover and boil on high heat for about 10 minutes. When milk begins to bubble, reduce to simmer for 20 minutes, or until breadfruit is tender like a cooked potato.
I had the very good fortune of meeting up with Linda Conroy a few months ago. She is an amazing herbalist and wild food lover, with oodles of knowledge that she joyfully shares. Linda is the founder of Moonwise Herbs, located in Sheboygan, WI. Besides offering herbal intensives and summer sea vegetable gatherings in the Puget Sound area, she hosts Wild Eats meals. These wild food extravaganzas are made from scratch and their motto is to, ‘Eat Wild and Whole Foods in Community!’.
Linda is currently writing a wild food cookbook, and I’m like reallyreallyreally excited to see what I know will be an amazing addition to the wild food world. Check out the menu from her November 4th Wild Eats Fall Frenzy Feast:
Appetizers
Goat Cheese with High Bush Cranberry Sauce Sourdough Crackers with Lamb’s Quarter Seeds Crabapple Chutney Deviled Eggs Stuffed with Watercress Pesto Pickle Tray: Wild Asparagus, Wild Leeks, Kelp, Dandelion Roots and Burdock
Soup and Salad
Wild Greens Salad with a Hawthorn Berry Vinaigrette Gamascio: Seaweed and Sesame Seed Condiment Wild Parsnip-Apple Soup with Wild Leeks
Main Course
Shepard’s Pie with Rabbit, Wild Leeks and Wild Parsnips Wild Rice cooked in Apple Cider with Butter, Hazel and Hickory Nuts and Elderberries Roasted vegetables featuring Wild Leeks, Burdock and Wild Parsnips Fermented Carrots with Wild Ginger Blackberry Applesauce Rose Hip Flat Bread
Beverages
Sparkling Pear Cider Rosehip Infusion Mulberry Wine Wild Grape Juice
Dessert
Apple Pear Crisp with Mulberries and Acorn Flour Crust served with Farm Fresh Cream Warm Apple Cider
My good friend Chef Bob is back and we’ve been having fun creating recipes. Pictured is an acorn pretzel with 3 kinds of wild mustards. On the left is a recipe from Rose Barlow’s website Prodigal Gardens for a wild greens mustard. We used agave nectar in place of maple syrup, and I soaked the mustard seeds in wild mustard flower vinegar. Read this post for making the vinegar. The mustard in the middle is a prickly pear pad combo, and the one on the right is a sweet chokecherry and agave nectar mustard. I tried to get Topanga State Park to let me do a 2-day wild mustard festival as part of the Park’s Land Management strategy, but that didn’t get too far.
Here’s Chef Bob working some of the dough. We made a plain white dough using unbleached white flour, along with the acorn dough, for contrast. Had a lot of fun rolling it out and making wacky designs. Below is my son…eyes closed…who ate this whole braid I made in less than 5 minutes.
Acorn Pretzels
3 ½ c unbleached white flour ½ c acorn flour 1 t sugar 1 package active dry yeast 1 ½ c warm water 1 quart water coarse salt
Mix 1 ½ cups flour with yeast, sugar, and ½ tsp salt. Add warm water and either beat with mixer or mix by hand. Gradually add remaining flours, then turn onto a floured area to knead. Place kneaded dough into greased bowl, cover, and let rise in warm area for roughly 1 hour. Punch down and turn onto floured area again to roll into long strands. Create your shapes, cover, and let rise for 30 minutes. Boil water, adding some salt, bring it down to a simmer and drop pretzels in water for roughly 20 seconds. Put them onto a well-greased baking sheet and cook 15 minutes in 375° oven. Pull them from the oven ½ way through cooking, and sprinkle on coarse salt.
‘Tis Samhain, and the veil is thin. Remember your beloved’s who have passed on. The oaks have turned earth/air/fire/water and more into lovely acorns, and I went to pay homage to Grandmother Oak for her gifts this morning…she is an elder among oaks in the Topanga Community. Laying in her hollowed belly I looked up to see that intricate dance between the dark and the light. I saw the heart, as nature always provides us with beauty, and was reminded of how this time of year represents the threshold. Beauty can exist at the edges of dark and light, and if we look within ourselves at the thresholds we oftentimes find the vitality of opposites. Wild places remind us to explore the unexamined territories of our own hearts and minds, continuing to live within places we hadn’t yet known were there. In Pablo Naruda’s words, ‘…We need to sit on the rim of the well of darkness and fish for fallen light…’
And as the light around us fades In golden shadows through the glade, Like distant echoes down the hall, we answer Samhain’s ancient call.
From everlasting times ‘til now, To storied lands, we all must bow; Where magic rings within our souls And as we shatter, we are whole.
This is the night to join the Dance, Partake in all-renewing trance; Where worlds within and out are One, Our sacred journey now begun.
To greet the ones we loved before, Our kith and kin from days of yore, Forgiven foe and long-lost friend – We dwell among you yet again.
For now the worldly veils are thin, Where hope and healing can begin. Our deeds are done; the hour is late To rest within the arms of Fate.
By fin and feather, leaf and bark, As sun now banks to sheltered spark; This year of trial and joy is past Within the Circle we have cast.
And as the light around us fades In golden shadows through the glade, Like distant echoes down the hall, We answer Samhain’s ancient call …
The photo is of roasted dandelion root ‘coffee’ and some wild fennel seed/acorn flour/wild black walnut biscotti. I hope you are able to sit with some warm drinks and treats with friends and family. That you give your children gifts of the sweetness of life. May you enjoy the dance between the dark and the light!
Happy Halloween! I couldn’t resist the title. Looking for some sweet treats for Hallowmas? Would you like to honor and feed your ancestors with some wild treats? Here are a few ideas. The first is a delicious prickly pear cheesecake, that really held its beautiful fuchsia coloring during cooking. Second is a prickly pear fruit sorbet, containing no added sugar or egg whites. You simply freeze prickly pear juice, stirring occasionally during the freezing process, for a really simple and yummy dessert or palate cleanser. Fun to save the prickly pear fruit shell and fill it with sorbet…bummer the picture turned out crummy.
Prickly Pear Cheesecake
Crust 1 1/2 c almond crunchies (*see below), or graham cracker crumbs 6 T butter 1/4 c sugar
Cheesecake 1 # cream cheese 1/2 c sugar 3 eggs, separated 1/4 c unbleached white flour 2 t lemon juice 1 t lemon rind 1 t vanilla extract 1/2 c heavy cream 1 c prickly pear juice, cooked down/reduced to 1/4 c
*To make ‘almond crunchies’ I soaked almonds in water for 12 hours, drained and pureed with cinnamon and vanilla. This was then spread onto dehydrator sheets and thoroughly dried. Butter your pie pan and press in crust mixture. Take one cup of pure prickly pear juice and reduce over low heat to 1/4 cup. Preheat oven to 300°. Put cream cheese, sugar, and egg yolks into mixing bowl and cream them together. Beat egg whites and fold into creamed mixture. Add remaining ingredients, pour into pie pan, and bake at 300° for roughly 40 minutes. Rotate 1/2 way during the baking process.
Prickly Pear Sorbet
Take freshly processed prickly pear juice and pour into bowl or pan. Only fill to about 2” deep. Stir roughly once per hour until you have a smooth and slushy consistency.
Sunny Savage, host of the television series ‘Hot on the Trail with Sunny Savage’, helps us untame our lives by incorporating wild foods into our modern-day diets. She holds an MS in Nutrition Education and has traveled to all 7 continents, learning from the plants and the people along the way. Her vision is that this website will become a clearinghouse of information and resources for wild food plants worldwide.
