The photo below shows you my very favourite forageable treasure. I am very thankful that I still have a picture of a morel mushroom I have picked. I have found many thousands of them over the years, but almost never carried a camera while hunting them. Well, the memories are there for me, but I can't share them with you as well as I could if I had photos.
My first haul of morels was my biggest. I told you once in a past post that one year I found over 600 of them. That was true, but that pales in comparison to what I found one of the first times I went out hunting for them. Had to be about 1976 or '77.
We had just moved into our first house, 'the old Erv Water's' place, which we purchased from Jeanne's Uncle Albert and Aunt Mary. I had been shown a few morels, so I'd know what to look for, and believed that they were out there in the woods somewhere, but didn't really expect to find many on my own. I just didn't realise how bountiful the woods of Gourley Township could be.
We had purchased 10 acres along with our house. I wandered out one day, walking toward the south end of the land, and kept my eyes peeled, just in case. There were scattered trees in a narrow meadow along the southern border of what we owned. I had just crossed the tiny seasonal stream that ran through that meadow. I later learned that it had watercress growing along its bank at one point.
Then, a miracle happened. I Saw One! I carefully harvested it and then spotted another. And another again. And oh my, even more, lots and lots more. I knelt down in amazement. There were so many I was afraid I'd start to step on them if I remained on my feet. They seemed to be everywhere. I wish I could adequately convey the feeling I had at that moment. I suppose something between astonishment and wonder might come close. I had brought a paper grocery bag with me and was soon on my way to filling it. I couldn't believe what was happening. Morels were everywhere. I hated to stop harvesting but finally did to run home to get yet another grocery bag.
When I was done that day, I had filled both paper bags to overflowing and had taken off my t-shirt, tied it shut at the bottom and had filled it up as well.
I never counted them, but there must have been well over a thousand. Our attic rooms were soon festooned with drying morels, strung on thread and draped all over the place.
That event was not the start of my interest in gathering wild foods. I had picked wild strawberries, chokecherries, apples and plums as a kid. Jeanne and I had even gathered wintergreen berries and Labrador Tea on dates while at N.M.U. (Never really thought of them as dates though, it was just being together.)
As many of you know, I'm still at it today. I've talked in other posts about my urban, suburban and urbane foraging. What follows are some pictures and a bit of text about what I have been harvesting during the early months of 2019.
There is a pear tree in a park about 20 minutes walk from our house. I made pear sauce with these Bartlett-style pears, then used that to cook a batch of acorn meal from last year's harvest. Pear and acorn porridge. Surprisingly tasty. Also ate some fresh pears.
This is the shot of the chestnut tree I used as my header on a previous post. On the corner of Sturges Road and Swanson, it is a real producer. There are other people who also harvest from this tree. In fact, one guy even stashed a 20 foot-long bamboo pole next to a near-by fence to assist him in the job.
It's rare for me to find three nuts in one burr...
...and all three of these were large ones too.
Those spines are sharp as needles.
Many burrs pop open while still on the tree, but I've developed my own method for opening those that don't.
I scuff them against the ground with my foot. The seams split with little effort and the nut(s) roll out.
One of the bowls of nuts I gathered. Roasted, boiled or even micro-waved, they are delicious. My total take this year was 149 nuts, much more than in past years. The main reason for that was the effort I put into it. One day, I walked to the tree three times. Once, I hurried to the tree as soon as the rain stopped during a gale and harvested 29 of them. I wonder if the guy with the pole stopped by some time later and was surprised that there was no bonanza of nuts. The early bird gets the worm.
Looking at some of my harvest, I feel like I should launch into song...
Something like "Yes, I am a rich man," sung to the tune of Tevye's song "If I were a rich man," from Fiddler on the Roof.
I'm at it again with English Oak acorns.
This year, I started early. I wanted to make some flour/meal out of perfect nuts, so I picked about 350 acorns right from the tree. They are ready to drop. Several times as I picked these, others were dropping from the same branch.
Here is this year's production. It is beautiful. Uniform in grind size and much finer than previous batches have been. Grind size is very important. I've learned a lot about producing it. Superior product in much less time.
I'm drying it in the sun. The cheese cloth keeps away the birds.
Jeanne made some acorn pasta using this meal. It was delicious.
My fig tree this year did remarkably well. I harvested 146 fresh figs and made a batch of stewed young figs in light syrup.
The lady up on Sturges Road did sell guavas again for $1/bag. You might point out that purchasing is not the same as foraging, but at that price, it's close enough for me. We had done an inventory of our guava syrup stocks and discovered that we still have plenty. Therefore, I bought just enough for fresh eating and juicing. I added guava juice to two of my batches of Butia fruitia juice.
Here they are! I was once again given permission to pick all the Butia I want. I've picked five large bags of them already, once with Jeanne's help. I've made them all into juice.
I love a glass of the juice in the morning. Here you see one in the earliest sunshine of the day.
(souvenir plastic 'glass' from Hamlet)
This is our feijoa tree of course. We've been enjoying them. Jeanne made us feijoa cake and feijoa sauce yesterday.
When Dianne was here visiting, they were just starting to ripen but were still on the tart side. These are fully ripened on the tree and there is a definite difference. Wish you could taste these Dianne.
We have been eating them like crazy and just look how many more we still have.
Our mini orange tree is loaded. They are starting to turn orange, but we have learned to leave them on the tree for as long as possible. They continue to become sweeter and 'orangier' if you do.
The lady who owns this tree was in her yard as I walked by one day. I said, "Pardon me, but is that a persimmon tree?" She told me that it was and that it was very prolific. It sounded as though she wouldn't mind parting with a few. I finally got up the courage to ask,
"May I please have permission to pick your persimmons?"
She said yes.
One day's bounty.
I've found that I like persimmons. They remind me in texture, while they are still firm like these are, of some sort of melon. They soften up later on and are not as good to eat fresh then, but can be used to make a pudding (that's the name here for a type of very dense, moist cake) that is amazingly good.
A blend of flavors
Jeanne added a cup of my Butia juice to the pot when she made some feijoa sauce...
I took some of her sauce and added a chopped up persimmon...
and 3/4 cup of acorn meal...simmered it for about half an hour...
This is the result and I think it is very good.
I eat it warm for breakfast.
Well, that's it for this year. My foraging amounts to very little of course compared to what Jeanne's gardens produced. She worked much harder gardening than I did foraging and raised fava beens, tomatoes, swiss chard, green beans, cucumbers, zukes, artichokes, asparagus, herbs of all sorts, and peppers. (And all our trees produce much better than they otherwise would because of her pruning and fertilizing.)
Her gardens are winding down too with the onset of fall, but the swiss chard, (called silver beet here) will continue to grow. She has some new fava beans coming up too, and they will manage to grow, however slowly, through the winter months.
I thought I'd leave you with a picture of her most recent picking of peppers. Earlier this year, she made some apple/pepper jelly and some vinegar-based hot sauce that I think is delicious. And right at my upper limit on the scoville scale.
It has been a good year for foraging. The best I've had in fact. I didn't list olives this year, because the trees in this area all took the year off. Next year, trees willing, I intend to try my hand at making olive oil. I'll keep you posted. -djf
