Recipes After Disaster - Eating Without Electricity (Day 4)

This is the fourth in a series of blogs on recipes that you can easily prepare in a disaster or emergency without power.
Foraging Basics
Wild edible foods are often more nutritious than those found in the grocery store. They’re fresher, they need no cultivation/care, and they grow in soil that is often more fertile and teeming with life, because it has not been continuously farmed and repeatedly tilled. When you’re left with only shelf-stable foods after a disaster, you’ll likely be grateful for the gift of fresh wild greens and berries.

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This book is available at our Washington County Library in the Portland OR area

References for Foraging
​My foraging knowledge is not extensive, but I have tried enough wild edible foods to provide some recommendations. For this post, I am relying primarily on the pages linked below, as well as Northwest Foraging (Benoliel, 2011). If you want to learn more about foraging, here are some of my other favorite sources of information: Braiding Sweetgrass (Kimmerer, 2013), The Forager’s Harvest (Thayer, 2006), Incredible Wild Edibles (Thayer, 2017), Pacific Northwest Foraging (Deur, 2014); these Instagram accounts: @blackforager @foragecolorado, and @linda.black.elk.  

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Disclaimers! Proceed with Caution
Before starting your foraging adventure, please heed some standard foraging disclaimers:
1. Consider if you need permission before harvesting a plant - whose land are you on?

• If a neighbor has an abundance of invasive (but tasty) garlic mustard, they might be pleased to meet you, and to hear your offer to relieve them of some of it.
• If you’re in an Oregon State Park, you’re allowed to gather up to one gallon of edible plants per day for personal consumption. However, in THPRD, foraging is not permitted.

​2. ​Be very sure that you’ve correctly identified the plant in question as an edible plant. 
3. Once you’re positive that the plant (and specific part that you’ve harvested) is edible...

• ​Consume only a very small amount the first time you harvest. We limit our consumption just in case we have an allergy to it.
• Example: Even though wheat bread is edible for most folks, individuals might have a negative reaction to it. So proceed with caution the first time to see if it agrees with your stomach!

"Consume only a Very Small Amount the first time you harvest."

4. Once you have permission, consider the plant’s status and health.
If it is an invasive plant, it may be good to remove/harvest all that you can. But if it’s a native plant, consider the effect of your harvest.

• Harvesting fruit or berries will not damage the plant, but you should take no more than one third of what’s available - leave some for wildlife and other foragers.
• Harvesting a small amount (~⅛ or less) of leaves or shoots is often fine if a plant is well-established in the area. Spread your harvest out among different plants so that they can each recover. And importantly, take only what you will use.

Foraged Foods in a Disaster
Foraged foods can be categorized in many different ways. One rough categorization method we’ll use is the amount of water that’s needed to clean and prepare the food (again, because our clean water is limited). We’re not going to discuss wild edible roots and tubers here because - though high in nutrition and valuable calories - they often take more water to prepare. We should also avoid foods found growing near busy roads because these foods are more likely to be dusty from car traffic and associated pollution.
We can further categorize wild edible foods by the season in which they’re available. Few edible wild plants are good to eat year-round, but some have a longer harvest period than others. I’m choosing some that have fairly long harvest periods. They are all potentially harvestable in April (when I’m writing this), and they can all be eaten raw or cooked (though Miner’s Lettuce is a bit too tender and cute to cook, I think). You will probably not find them all in one outing, but they are fairly common in our area, easy to identify, and well worth knowing.

Foraged green salad ingredients
Dandelion leaves - very nutritious, but not a favorite of many, as they are usually bitter. Gather a small number of relatively clean, younger leaves. If you have the patience of a few weeks, dandelion leaves can be grown in a “blanched” fashion by depriving them of sunlight (just cover them with an inverted plant nursery pot. This process reduces their bitterness, and may also keep them cleaner. Blanching is a common growing practice that can mollify the flavor of cultivated plants like endive, radicchio, and rhubarb. If you use this process with dandelions, you may choose to include a larger number of leaves in your salads.
Lamb’s quarters - very nutritious, much more tasty than dandelion, though not as widespread. As Alan Bergo mentions, it needs disturbed soil to thrive. Many consider it a weed, but if you want to let it multiply, harvest only the tips (these are the most tender anyway). 
Lemon balm - this perennial mint relative can become a bit weedy if the seed heads are left to develop. The flavor is nice and lemony, but the leaves may be a touch fuzzy for some. A handful of leaves in a salad are nice, and a lot of them can be used to make pesto when you have access to a food processor and electricity.
Miner’s lettuce - This Portland Plant List native is my favorite of the suggested ingredients here. Its leaves are sweeter and more succulent than spinach, and it grows easily through the winter and early spring. I planted them in my yard years ago, and so they grow by themselves as an abundant spring annual. The early leaves are simple, succulent, and heart-shaped. The later leaves grow in a distinctive pointed circle that completely surrounds each stem, with tiny white flowers in the middle. As the name implies, this plant was eaten by gold rush miners, and its vitamin C often warded off scurvy. Of course, this plant was known and cherished MUCH earlier by native peoples - one of their names for it is Rooreh.
Sheep sorrel - This miniature relative of French Sorrel (mentioned in Day 3’s post) is quite similar - the leaves are smaller, and in a more pronounced arrowhead shape. Both bring a nice tartness to a salad.

Dandelion leaves can be blanched by covering them with an inverted pot to reduce bitterness (Image by Lincoln Thomas)

Lamb's quarters are nutritious and tasty in a salad

Lemon balm, a perennial mint, has a lemony flavor

Miner's lettuce, a native NW annual, is abundant in early spring

Sheep sorrel is adds tartness to a salad

Salad recipe

1. Optional: First spray your produce with a 1:2 vinegar water solution.
2. Rinse your produce with water, then dry with a towel or salad spinner.
3. Chop your produce into bite-sized pieces
4. Dress your salad. Suggestion: 2 Tbsp olive oil, 1 Tbsp vinegar of choice, ½ tsp mustard (lasts a month or more at room temperature), ⅛ tsp salt & garlic powder, dash of pepper.

Blog Series Links

Check out all of the blogs in the Recipes after a Disaster series: 

• Day 1 - Menu strategy: Eat Fresh Foods First
• Day 2 - Food Use & Storage Strategies
• Day 3 - Meals from Canned Foods
• Day 4 - Foraging Basics
• Day 5 - Pantry Soup Warmed by Tea Candles

Author

Lincoln Thomas, Newsletter Editor & Board Member, Neighbors Ready!