The Rural Voice, 2019-09, Page 39you diarrhea.” Noted.
Next, I was told to sample a petal
of the lily. I could take it or leave it
but thought it might be pretty on
salads. Turns out the whole plant is
edible. In the fall, foragers can dig up
the root tubers while the spring
shoots of the lilies are sweet and
tasty as well. Peter notes that while
common daylilies are entirely edible,
cultivated lilies are often not.
Next we trooped into the woods
where we found plantains, a good
plant to rub into wounds to aid in
healing. Our first mushroom was a
pheasant-back mushroom,
characterized by the feather-like
brown markings. “They taste a bit
like sweet cucumber,” said Peter,
leaving it on the tree for a tour he
was hosting on the weekend.
We saw beech rooters next. These
mushrooms are identified by their
long, spindly stems and plant-like
bulbous roots at the end of the stem.
The stems are too tough to eat but the
caps saute nicely.
We also saw mayapples which,
when they turn yellow, Peter likes to
boil down into a syrup. Mayapples
can be eaten raw but not the seeds.
Indeed, the entire plant except for the
yellow fruit is toxic so it’s wise to be
careful ingesting it.
Unfurled bloodroot, heart-shaped
wild ginger (you only need a little
bit!), the aggressive garlic mustard,
false solomon’s seal and a patch of
wild asparagus growing in the ditch
outside the forest path rounded up the
day’s finds.
July is a little early for
mushrooms. The best mushroom
hunting trips are in the fall unless
you are looking for morels, a spring
mushroom, which were late and hard
to find this year.
This is the tenth anniversary of
Peter’s foraging business and he was
celebrating with one of his popular
Forage and Feast events. These
experiences combine a foraging
expedition with a dinner made by
local chefs, using wild edibles. This
year, the dinner featured nettle soup,
nettle cheese from Mountain Oak
Cheese with baguettes, quiche made
with wild leek bulbs and a rhubarb
pie dessert accented with Japanese
knotweed, an invasive plant that
sends up tender red shoots in the
spring before growing into a huge,
bamboo-like weed.
Peter hosts one Forage and Feast
event a month. The hikes are held
almost every week from April to
November and he tries to limit them
to 15 people.
“It’s hardly any local people. It’s
all people from the larger cities like
Toronto and Kitchener and London,”
says Peter.
It’s important to teach them how
to harvest sustainably, says Peter.
When they go fiddle head hunting,
participants are told to only harvest
four to six fiddles per pod, leaving
the rest to mature and germinate. It is
the same with leeks and mushrooms
and other edibles. Take a few, leave
the rest, or there won’t be any the
next year.
“People go crazy for the
fiddleheads,” says Peter. Other
popular wild edibles are the white
oyster mushroom which came out
late due to the cool spring weather.
Coral mushrooms and honey
mushrooms are rare finds that excite
him. Coral mushrooms such as the
Lion’s Mane all look like cauliflower
and grow in decayed, blackened
wood. “One called the Bear’s Head
September 2019 35
Upridge Holsteins
Embro, Ontario, Canada
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