Wild Edible Hike

Yesterday for the Cache Valley Vegan group, I had organized a hike with a friend who is an amazing ecologist/botanist/environmentalist among other things, but for now we will call him a wild food expert.

To start out the hike he talked about the basket that he had brought that had come from Indonesia.  It was made of locally sourced plant materials.  He wanted to demonstrate how strong the fibers were, and what craftsmanship can look like.  

The first plant that we talked about was Burdock:
A wild edible green that can be used best in sautee's as it's a little bitter.
I collected some for the salad to be made later :)

then there was horsemint:

used just as mint can be used-- 

As an herb for seasoning, raw or cooked :) 

Below is fireweed.  The inner stem according to others who tried them are tasty, I didn't try them, but I did try a leaf, it tasted like grass.  

As you can see, there was a pretty decent turnout for the hike!  All crowded around, eager to learn about the plants :) 

Below are a couple of pictures of a wild carrot, flowers, leaves and roots are edible.  

This was my favorite edible plant learning of the day!  Anise!  

It has a lovely sweet licorice flavor, oh so amazing and they grow in huge clumps so

you can harvest a decent amount.  They grow about the size of mint plants..  

Here is a picture of its leaves:

I was a big fan of this flower as well, the Bluebell, however after eating many of them, I think a stranger flavor kept emerging.  It was said to mentioned that it tasted like a clam.  But I thought it tasted more like a blueberry.  However, with time, I think it became tasting a little more like I imagine a clam may taste like and my interest in it, became a little less enthused.  It may be one of those acquired tastes.. you know like everything else.  I remember the first time I bought cilantro.  I loved it, and then I quickly grew really sick of it.  But then over time, with persistence I love love cilantro... so maybe it's something like that? who knows. Below is a picture:
-- These flowers at this time of year grow very close to the ground and typically are found in clumps of 2-3.

At the end of it, we all met at Natural Philosophy to have salad.

It was amazing -- I apologize for not getting up close pictures of the salad, I didn't think about it. 

They had made some raw dressings for the salad which were incredible.

They made a peanut thai dressing made from equal parts of prunes and peanuts, with blended ginger and salt.  

The kids at the salad tasting event, were a little less happy about some of the bitter qualities of the salad, but it just seems that it is highly nutritious right!! :)

Lots of fun.