It's spring again! (So they say) Anyway, it's time to start looking for wild food in your back yard or local area. For Easter, I made a salad of lettuce, chopped turnip with the bit of greens that was growing from it, tender dandelion leaves, wild salsify leaves and some chives. It was very good, but now I'm hungry for more wild food. We used to gather dock early in the spring and that was our first "greens" dish in the spring, but it doesn't grow in my backyard. Neighbors would probably complain if it did. 

Do you eat wild food? What kind and where do you find it? 

 I don't but like the idea of recognizing what it is and its uses.  Edey

 Most wild foods are nutritionally superior to their domestic counterparts. 

The wild foods I have available over the season include dandelion leaves, flowers and roots, salsify leaves and roots, purslane stems/roots and seeds, lambsquarter leaves and seeds. I used to have day lilies and dock. I think there's more but can't remember. 

Pat, I read Euell Gibbons as a kid. Always wanted to live off the land.

My kid (17, so not so much a kid) always asks what anything green is. He "caught" me one year by asking the produce manager where the dock and dandelion greens were. He'd wanted to surprise me with a salad.

That was a fun discussion. He'd never noticed me pulling small leaves on our walks, for nine years.

Do you have/now of some good sites to ID wild food with good pictures?

 I like "Wild Man" Steve Brill, who gives wild food tours in NY City parks, of all places. His site has some good pictures as well as uses for many wild foods. There are several online that are good - just google "wild food" or "edible weeds." Your library should have books that show what's available in your area. There's a wide difference in the types of wild foods that grow, but some are quite common (like dandelion). Have you tried many different kinds? 

The only wild foods I've ever picked and used are wild blackberries. They used to grow wild near my maternal Grandmother's summer home. I'd pick them almost daily. She'd fix us either a shortcake or a cobbler with them.

I remember dock, Pat. It was dangerous for our cattle to eat, according to my step-father.

My step-father used to pick those puff ball mushrooms and Mom would cook them for the two of them.

 Pat, I've done some shroom hunting (morels, chanterelles) use a few various greens, take note of some feral apple trees.

 Not too heavy.

Virginia Needlewoman:

I remember dock, Pat. It was dangerous for our cattle to eat, according to my step-father.

Yes, it's dangerous for cattle because the Vitamin A content is so high, it's an overdose for them. One cup is about the daily dose for people, but cattle don't need that much. 

truepeacenik:

 Pat, I've done some shroom hunting (morels, chanterelles) use a few various greens, take note of some feral apple trees

If you have access to some area that hasn't been poisoned, try dandelion flowers dipped in a thin batter like pancake batter and fried in just a little oil. They taste kind of like mushrooms. 

There's a whole world of free food out there that most people don't take advantage of. 

 I have a full dandelion in my front yard flower bed. I am contemplating what I will do with it. I heard you can roast the roots like chicory to stretch or replace coffee. Leaves are good for salads. Normally, I don't get to do this because my dog can get to most places that have wild foods. Not so with the front yard. I was actually glad the yard boy didn't get rid of it on Wednesday! Hopefully, it will hang around til Sunday. The girls and I can have a wild food project.