The foraging thread - No such thing as a free lunch?

[Hongourable Madisha]

I would look up cooking instructions for the specific type of wild mushrooms. Some are ok, but other's need to be cooked thoroughly to degrade the toxins. There was some mushrooms I saw on a bike path that looked like ones in a grocery store, but I'm not mushroom expert so I didn't mess with it.

I'm still debating on if I should forage for raspberries this year, I never find a whole lot in my area.

Yeah you definitely can't eat it raw, I've seen some recipes that say to parboil or blanch chicken-of-the-woods before further cooking it. I just fried it but it was cooked through, I'll try boiling it first and then letting it dry and cool off when I cook some more, before I bake or fry it.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

I did it lads, tendies of the woods.

 

[Justtocheck]

How do I plant a Big Mac tree that'll give me hamburgers in 10 years?

 

[Helvítis Túristi]

How do I plant a Big Mac tree that'll give me hamburgers in 10 years?

I would probably say when scientists can get plants to produce actual animal meat. So we would first have to perfect the pigs growing human organs and then test to see if plants can then do it. From there it's just get the right animal parts and fat to grow from the plant. Of course, it would be an abomination and I don't think you could ever get a perfect plant substitute for meat.

 

[fnaarf]

It's still best to err on the side of caution if you're unsure, because polluted mussels can fuck you up good for the rest of your days.

I'm a bit late on this, but out of curiosity can you just put mussels in homemade saltwater and let them filter the clean water through or is the pollution generally too much for that?

 

[Helvítis Túristi]

I'm a bit late on this, but out of curiosity can you just put mussels in homemade saltwater and let them filter the clean water through or is the pollution generally too much for that?

If you mean chemicals or the red tides, then no. Most of the toxins you have to worry about with marine life stick with them for life, but the lower food chain organisms have lower amounts.

Edit: I stand slightly corrected, you can apparently reduce the PSP toxins to a degree. The article is called

"Detoxification of paralytic shellfish poisoning toxins in naturally contaminated mussels, clams and scallops by an industrial procedure" ​

But the process is so tedious and requires an autoclave that I would not recommend it. It also doesn't reduce the toxins to European safety levels.

 

[Coffee Druid]

Got lots of native persimmons growing. Not related to Asian persimmons. Once these turn black they’ll be ripe, but it will probably be another month or two. I’m going to at least make jam with some, and look up other recipes if enough survive the birds.

Once ripe they stain everything brown. Maybe it could be interesting to use the skins to dye some cotton fabric or yarn?

 

[ShortPoppy]

Went for a wander along the creek the other day and found tons of watercress. I don't recall finding any last year ... but I'm pretty new to foraging, I probably saw it and didn't realise it was edible. And delicious!
Other pickable plants are still fairly small and/or sparse, seeing as it's still pretty early in winter. Will give the wild fennel a couple more weeks to grow out its new shoots.

There's one patch under a particular tree where I found a couple of stinging nettles last year. I came back a couple of times to gather new shoots, before the park maintenance crew cleared them out (which was fair enough since they were close to a well-trafficked footpath). There are a few baby nettle plants growing there now - I'm tempted to dig one up and take it home with me, and see if I can grow it in a pot.

So, most of the plants I forage are invasive European species (just cleaning up the local environment lol), but I'm trying to find out which native species are worth harvesting from too.
I just picked a few kangaroo apples for the first time (attaching a photo from a botanical archive as I don't have a working camera right now, also image embedding isn't working for me):

The tree is part of the solanaceae family, so the fruit's actually more like small tomatoes than apples. Soft flesh with hard seeds, mild sweet taste a bit like guava, slightly bitter skin. Despite the name the fruits are eaten mostly by birds (and humans in the past). I need to go and find some more, I want to try drying them ...