The Rural Voice, 2019-09, Page 38The way Peter Blush tells it, the first time he saw
leeks growing in an Ontario forest, he literally lay
down on the ground and started grazing on the leeks.
“My girlfriend’s mother was horrified,” remembers
Peter, who was raised in the United States and then lived in
Quebec for decades. In Quebec, leeks are protected
because of decades of over-harvesting. So Ontario’s bounty
was overwhelming.
As a former war correspondent and graphic designer, he
really didn’t know a lot about wild edibles but he knew
about leeks. However, that first experience in the spring of
2005 was transformative for Peter, who had by then moved
to the Stratford area.
A few days later, he was talking to a lady named Linda
at the dog park. She was a biologist and asked Peter if she
could hunt for wild edibles with him. Instead of looking at
the ground, Peter noticed Linda was focussed on the trees.
“When we were finished the hike she told me we had to
return in the Autumn because there would be lots of
mushrooms then. That was my first introduction into the
tree and mushroom relationship. I was hooked,” says Peter.
He began a process of self-schooling himself on wild
edibles.
At first, he foraged for fiddleheads and wild
mushrooms, selling them to local chefs. But he found chefs
were “greedy” and Peter started getting uncomfortable
about the sustainability of the business.
When Stratford Tourism hired him to lead a wild edibles
workshop, it sold out. “I took that idea and ran with it, but I
do make sure to also teach workshop attendees how to
harvest sustainably.”
I joined Peter on a hike. First stop was on the roadside
at a patch of common daylilies (we call them tiger lilies).
He encouraged me to pop off a bud and eat it. “It will taste
nutty at first and then you will start to feel a spicy heat,” he
said. That is exactly what happened and it was exciting to
acquire this bit of knowledge to satisfy a deep-rooted,
survivalist, instinct.
“But don’t eat too many,” he cautioned. “Most people
can handle it but if your stomach isn’t used to it, it can give
34 The Rural Voice
Foraging for wild edibles
“It’s like an outdoor grocery store,” says forager, Peter
Blush, who teaches people what is safe ... and what is not
Peter Blush (centre) of Stratford is the intrepid leader of Peter Puck’s Foraging. A naturalist, Peter leads would-be
foragers into the woods to discover what bounty is available from April to November. He finds mushrooms such as
beech rooters (top left) and pheasant-back mushrooms (top right), a bracket fungus that is also edible when young and
fresh.
• By Lisa B. Pot •
Forests