Urban Foraging
By David Craft
4/5
()
About this ebook
Urban Foraging walks readers through the seasons, discussing what plants in the city are edible and which parts are the tastiest. It includes recipes and anecdotes - historical and personal - and special sections on herbal teas, edible garden weeds, mushrooms and more.
David Craft
David Craft is an urban forager and cancer research living in Cambridge, MA.
Read more from David Craft
PTSD Recovery: 16 Strategies For Dealing With PTSD Symptoms And Regaining Emotional Balance Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hygge Habits: Embrace Hygge For More Joy And Happiness In Life Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Kundalini Awakening Meditation: Third Eye Awakening With Kundalini Awareness Meditation For Beginners Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRadical Acceptance And Self-Esteem: Embrace Your Gifts Of Imperfection, Overcome Your Confidence Gap And Build Self-Acceptance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDialectical Behavior Therapy: Control Your Emotions, Overcome Mood Swings And Balance Your Life With DBT Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Accelerated Learning Techniques: 20 Accelerated Learning Techniques For Learning Faster And Memorizing Better Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChakra Awakening: Learn How To Awaken Your Seven Major Energy Centers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLone Star J.R.: The Autobiography of Racing Legend Johnny Rutherford Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Psychic Empath: The Ultimate Empath Guide To Understanding And Embracing Your Gift Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStress Management: 14 Easy Strategies for Living a Stress-Free and Relaxed Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPhotographic Memory: 13 Proven Memory Improvement Methods For Remembering Anything Faster And Better Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmall Talk: 14 Easy-To-Follow Strategies To Start A Small Talk And Keep It Going Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStop Drinking Alcohol: 18 Strategies For Giving Up On Alcohol Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Imperfection: 15 Strategies To Embrace Imperfections And Boost Your Self-Esteem Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReiki For Beginners: Embrace Reiki For Multiple Mental And Physical Health Benefits Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBipolar Disorder: Learn How To Manage The Condition And Live A More Productive, Healthier Lifestyle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDepression Cure: Overcome Depression And Bring Happiness Back To Your Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOvercome Social Anxiety: Strategies For Overcoming Social Anxiety And Building Self-Confidence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmpath Healing: The Ultimate Emotional Healing Guide For Highly-Sensitive People And Empaths Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCognitive Behavioral Therapy: Guide To Becoming Free Of Anxiety And Depression Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnger Management: 16 Strategies For Mastering Destructive Emotions And Taking Control Over Your Anger Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Urban Foraging
Related ebooks
Foraging for Beginners: Your Reliable Guide to Foraging Medicinal Herbs, Wild Edible Plants and Berries, #1 Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Foraging for Wild Foods Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Joy of Foraging: Gary Lincolff's Illustrated Guide to Finding, Harvesting, and Enjoying a World of Wild Food Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSurvival Skills of the North American Indians Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Some Useful Wild Plants: A Foraging Guide to Food and Medicine From Nature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdible Wild Plants: Botanical descriptions with illustrative photos Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWild Yet Tasty: A Guide to Edible Plants of Eastern Kentucky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Guide to Foraging Edible Wild Greens in North America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll About Weeds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Guide to Your Herb Garden - Descriptions of How to Grow and Care for Everyday Herbs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Swamp & Bog: Trees, Shrubs, and Wildflowers of Eastern Freshwater Wetlands Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adventures in Edible Plant Foraging: Finding, Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Native and Invasive Wild Plants Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsForaging for Beginners: Your Simplified Guide to Foraging Edible Plants for Survival in the Wild: Self-Sufficient Living Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsForaging for Survival: Edible Wild Plants of North America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Deerholme Foraging Book: Wild Foods from the Pacific Northwest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Scout's Guide to Wild Edibles: Learn How To Forage, Prepare & Eat 40 Wild Foods Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foraging: Discover Free Food from Fields, Streets, Gardens and the Coast Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foraging Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAcorns & Cattails: A Modern Foraging Cookbook of Forest, Farm & Field Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Edible Wild Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Identifying & Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foraging: The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Foraging Wild Edible Plants and Medicinal Herbs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Everything Guide to Foraging: Identifying, Harvesting, and Cooking Nature's Wild Fruits and Vegetables Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdible Wild Plants: A Field Guide to Foraging in North America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdible Wild Plants of Eastern North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Food You Can Forage: Edible Plants to Harvest, Cook and Enjoy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Botany For You
The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edible Wild Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Language of Flowers: A Definitive and Illustrated History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SAS Survival Handbook, Third Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foraging for Survival: Edible Wild Plants of North America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Enchanted Wood (Faraway Tree #1) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Kitchen Garden: An Inspired Collection of Garden Designs & 100 Seasonal Recipes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fantastic Fungi: How Mushrooms Can Heal, Shift Consciousness, and Save the Planet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Floriography: An Illustrated Guide to the Victorian Language of Flowers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Coffee: A Sustainable Guide to Nootropics, Adaptogens, and Mushrooms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Heartbeat of Trees: Embracing Our Ancient Bond with Forests and Nature Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion: An Informative, Easy-to-Use Guide to Understanding Magic Mushrooms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Fungi: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Practical Botany for Gardeners: Over 3,000 Botanical Terms Explained and Explored Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adventures in Edible Plant Foraging: Finding, Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Native and Invasive Wild Plants Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Grow Psilocybin Mushrooms at Home for Beginners Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWild Tea: Grow, gather, brew & blend 40 ingredients & 30 recipes for healthful herbal teas Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Forager's Handbook: A Seasonal Guide to Harvesting Wild, Edible & Medicinal Plants Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWildcrafted Fermentation: Exploring, Transforming, and Preserving the Wild Flavors of Your Local Terroir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mycelial Mayhem: Growing Mushrooms for Fun, Profit and Companion Planting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Scout's Guide to Wild Edibles: Learn How To Forage, Prepare & Eat 40 Wild Foods Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for Urban Foraging
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
Urban Foraging - David Craft
Urban Foraging
- With recipes, photos, stories, and more.
Published by David Craft
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 David Craft
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
ISBN 978-1-4507-0751-0
This book is available in print from www.harvard.com
Disclaimer
This book is not a field guide. Field guides describe the habitat and physical characteristics of plants in great detail so that careful readers can identify plants with near certainty. While identifying common wild plants is not overly difficult, the practice should be taken seriously by people who are planning to eat them. When identifying plants for the first time, more than one source should be consulted, and you should be careful not to force a plant to fit a description, which is tempting for a forager keen on finding particular plants. The easiest way to learn plants is to be taught by another person, and therefore it is good to be always on the lookout for anyone who might know about a plant, such as a homeowner tending to his or her garden, or local foragers, botanists, or herbalists giving tours.
Most of the plants that I come across are not poisonous. Growing up, I was told that every berry that was not the obvious blueberry or raspberry was poisonous. This is far from the case, but the myth persists: people are nervous when they see me eat some red berry unknown to them. (This might be traceable to the berries of the deadly nightshade, which are common and poisonous). This book deals with wild plants that are edible, common, and found in urban areas. Between edible and poisonous lies a set of plants that I group together as survival food.
Survival food plants are edible but they are not too easy on the palate and so I do not include them in this book (example: inner bark of the white pine). Thus, this book is neither a survival guide nor a field guide. Instead, it is a stroll through the seasons, along the city streets and in the parks, hunting for tasty, overlooked edible plants. The goals are simple: to inspire people to find and prepare edible plants and, by doing so, to reawaken a sense of gratitude and reverence for the earth and the life it produces, even within the city limits.
Chapter 1: City life
As of 2008, for the first time in history, the number of humans living in cities exceeds the number not living in cities. The life of the urban dweller proceeds without much connection to nature, except for the daily news about the weather, or the occasional fallen tree branch obstructing the way. Modern living is in constant struggle with nature: rather than accept the temperature as it is, we burn fuels made from the nature of millions of years ago to keep ourselves in a 72 degree environment. And rather than walk down the street–humans are well designed walking machines–we hop in our cars for a two mile trip to the grocery store. Of course, this is all perfectly natural, things are the way they are. Life in the city, like life in the woods, involves endless competition, and productivity is the means to ultimate capitalist success. So why waste time walking when you can pack in more by driving? Nevertheless, the lack of nature in the city is real. Pavement and buildings are everywhere, sealing off the ground from plants and animals. But fortunately, for those of us who live in cities and still want to take in nature on a daily basis, wild plants find their way in.
Life on earth is a battle. Trees in forests compete for soil nutrients and sunlight, predator and prey counts rise and fall cyclically, and any genetic variation that produces a trait that is, at least for the time being, favorable, is preserved. Therefore, even when it seems like all the dirt in a city has been sealed off, a city stroll can still be a nature expedition, and a lesson in tenacity. A goldenrod seed lands in some crack on a bridge and enough city dust blows in to allow the seed to germinate and fill the bridge with flowers. A purslane plant emerges like magic from the line where a building meets the sidewalk. And wherever city planners have placed a park, or citizens have built a garden, so long as the maintenance is a bit lax, weeds–a lot of them edible–enter the scene.
The wild plants in a city are a tiny fraction of what you find in other places, but there are still plenty. In fact, for people completely new to botany, a city is an ideal place to learn because the variety of plants is much more manageable than what you find on a walk through the countryside. City arborists, when choosing trees to plant on city streets, rely on about six types of trees that are hardy enough to withstand the environment and do not lose their limbs or push up the sidewalk too much. Once you learn to recognize the honey locust, London plane, flowering pears, maples, oaks, and lindens, you have 80% of the trees you happen by on an urban nature walk in Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, London and Berlin. And the last three of those six trees provide fine foodstuffs for the urban forager.
This book progresses through the seasons, from early spring to the end of fall. Many plants make more than one edible appearance throughout the year, and this structure allows them to re-enter the story when appropriate. Field guides and the internet are both valuable sources for learning more about the plants and mushrooms talked about in this book. Although photographs are included, the same plants living under different environments can look very different, and so it is a good idea to get a variety of pictures and viewpoints to learn a new plant. The ability of humans to generalize and extract key features of plant life–an obvious benefit evolutionarily–does not get used much by the modern human. As a forager, you get to tap into that neglected ability quite