Urban Foraging with "Wildman" Steve Brill

Prior to leaving for the farm, I had made plans with my friend, Farah, to join her and her husband, John, on an urban foraging adventure in Central Park.

I had first read about Steve Brill in Cathy Erway's book, "The Art of Eating In" and was interested in finding out more about urban foraging.  Steve Brill is America's self-proclaimed best-known forager. He has published a few books and takes groups on urban foraging tours in Manhattan's Central Park, Brooklyn's Prospect Park, Queen's Forest Park (my neighborhood!), Stone Barns in Westchester - actually a surprising number of locations in NJ, NY, CT, and PA.  He is quite the character and you can learn more about him here:  http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/ 
Farah and John had gone the previous weekend on his Stone Barns tour and had very much enjoyed it. 

What is urban foraging? you ask.  It's going into a public space like Central Park, and being able to identify what may look like weeds but is actually edible.  Personally, I'm not sure that one could survive on what we found growing wild in the park, but I guess that in dire circumstances, it would suffice.
Anyway, you make your reservation on line and there are instructions for what you need to bring with you - little of which I actually ended up using.  I took with me a big bottle of water (I did actually use this), my camera, a notebook and pencil, gardening gloves, some bags with which I could take samples home (I didn't), and a harvesting knife.  Farah and I made our plans on Friday to meet up near her place at 11:00.  As usual, the subway was a mess (typical weekend track work), so we decided to take a cab uptown to the Upper West Side.  There was a group of about 20 or so people and we were almost the last people to get there.  Our tour was through Central Park's Ramble, which is at the most northern edge of the park.

Steve started off, with all of us following him rather like ducklings and the first stop was at a patch of Common Mallow.  At each stop, he talks about the particular plant, what it's uses are, what it looks like and passes some around for everyone to taste.  (Farah warned me that John had tried a little bit too much the previous weekend and ended up with some unpleasant stomach issues, so I tried very small amounts.)  Anyway, Common Mallow has a small fruit that looks like a miniature wheel of cheese.  The leaves are edible too and can be put in soups and salads or used to make a tea to soothe the digestive system.

Here's a list of what we looked at prior to breaking for lunch (all are edible except where noted):
Yellow Watercress  - a type of mustard.  Greens from the mustard family are anti-cancer agents.
Poor Man's Pepper - very spicy, but tasty leaves. I think this was my favorite of the day.
Sow Thistle - looks like a dandelion but has a milky sap.  Steve noted that Dandelion Wine is actually made from the flowers of the plant. 
Star of Bethlehem - looks like field garlic, but is poisonous. The leaves are flat with a white stripe and the root/bulb has no smell.
Wood Sorrel - looks almost like clover but has heart shaped leaves.
Epazote - this grows wild in Central Park, but you can buy it at the greenmarket. The leaves are narrow and toothed (or serrated).  You can use like parsley in beans and guacamole and it's often used in Mexican dishes.  It also helps to keep intestinal parasites at bay.
Juneberry Tree
Lamb's Quarters
Chickweed - tastes like corn and is filled with vitamins.


Poor Man's Pepper - actual size is about 50% of above

 
At this point, Steve asked if we were ready to break for lunch.  Coincidentally, there was an event in Central Park that day called Raptor Fest, which was happening right where we stopped for lunch. (We had stopped at Pret a Manger on our way to the park and purchased our lunches for later.)  This was perfect as, at this point, we were almost more interested in seeing the birds than continuing on the tour.  They had a wide variety of birds, all of which were gorgeous: Peregrine Falcon, Turkey Vulture, several Hawks and several kinds of Owls (see my favorite below).  They had quite a few of the birds out on leashes in a holding area and several more in transport cages.  They would bring the birds out in front of the grandstands and talk about them and have them fly from one person to another.  Well, unbeknownst to us (at first, anyway) there was a wild hawk circling very high above us, so when they had one of the hawks out, instead of flying to the other person, it flew into a nearby tree.  They raced after it and got it to come back to them and brought out a different bird.  The wild hawk had settled in another tree nearby and was watching the proceedings. When they brought out the next bird, it flew off and didn't come back.  Luckily, they all have radio collars, so about an hour later, we saw some of the park rangers carrying the escaped bird back to the area where they were having the show.  At that point, they actually stopped the show which worked out perfectly for us as it was time to resume our foraging with Steve.

Barn Owl

So, we continued onward with Steve.  Here's a list of what we looked at next:

Wild Plaintain - mash the leaves to relieve the pain of mosquito bites

Foxtail grass - I see this all over my neighborhood.  This plant, when the foxtail has dried, you eat the seeds that are left.

Artemisia - also known as sweet wormwood - can be used to relieve the symptoms of malaria.  The herb, tarragon, is part of the Artemisia family.

Black Nightshade - the berries are sweet.

Black Birch Tree - if you chew on the small twigs, they taste like wintergreen or root beer.  The juice obtained by chewing acts like a low-dose aspirin and is a natural relief for the pain of teething babies.

Chicken Mushroom - so called because the flesh of the mushroom looks like cooked chicken breast.  These must be cooked - they can not be eaten raw. Easily found on and around trees.

Steve Brill with a Chicken Mushroom

Garlic mustard - a very invasive plant, you can eat the smaller leaves, the seeds and the roots are like horseradish.  Best harvested in May and make a great pesto.

Sassafrass - use the roots, boil covered for 20 minutes to make a detox tea

Field Garlic - not to be confused with the Star of Bethlehem (see above)

    Osage Orange - the "fruit" of the tree repels cockroaches 

Prince Mushroom - has pink gills and must be cooked for about 15 minutes.  A good book on mushrooms is "Mushrooms Demystified" by David Arora.
Purslane - commonly found at the base of trees, it has small leaves and is high in iron.  I've seen it often in my neighborhood.
Black Walnut Trees - obviously, the nut can be eaten, but it's inside a fleshy outer skin that is easier to remove when dried.  (You will stain your fingers black while peeling the fruit away from the inner nut.)

That was the last thing we looked at on the tour which ended near the Harlem Meer (a big pond) at the northeastern corner of the park.  We walked back through the Ramble, a little tired, but the surroundings were beautiful.  We decided to stop and have a drink at the Central Park Boathouse and watched the sun go down on a perfect day.