Saving Money: Foraged Foods Help Feed Your Family for Less

In a time of rapidly rising food prices, record-high gasoline costs and a global credit crunch that threatens world food supplies, there's no time like the present to reach inside yourself and rediscover that frugal, pioneering spirit.

This spring is the perfect opportunity to try your hand at a lost skill that was instrumental to the settlement of this great country: Wild-food foraging.

It's fun, it's healthy and - best of all - it's free!

A small plastic pail or two, a pair of good gardening gloves, a copy of Peterson's Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants and a bright sunny spring morning are all you need to get started.

After a day in the field, you can steam up a basket of succulent, sweet cat-tail shoots. Pickle a jar of crunchy cowslip buds, and cook the tender young leaves as you would spinach. Discover the tasty white globes at the base of the wild leek's bright green foliage. Or snap up a bagful of fiddleheads to boil-and-butter for a delicious end-of-day meal.

Here's how.

1. Know what you're looking for.

There's an abundance of resources available to help you narrow down what's growing in your area and when best to harvest it. Peterson's Edible Wild Plants, with its detailed descriptions, color photographs and warnings against toxic look-alikes, is a must-have for any serious forager. Most extension services have literature and some even offer classes for folks taking to the wilds.

2. Pick while the food is freshest.

Here in Michigan, late April to early May is the best time to scout out young cat-tail shoots, fern fiddleheads, morel mushrooms, and marsh marigold buds. This is also the best time to locate and mark those elusive woodland patches of wild leeks, for harvesting now or later in spring

3. Prepare or preserve the food right away.

For fresh salad munchies like violet leaves or wild lettuces, plan a lunch or dinner of the freshets you foraged that morning. For pickling foods like the tiny cowslip buds or the fat, white leek bulbs, have the vinegars and jars on hand that you'll need to put your foodstuffs up right away.

4. Follow instructions closely.

If your food guide says to boil the florets at least twice, then don't scrimp on safety - do it. Bypass any edible you're not sure you can identify. When in doubt, do without.

Here's a trio of items now being served from Mother Nature's menu right now. Look for them in the woods and wetlands near you.

Cat-tail shoots
T. latifolia

Anyone who's familiar with Euell Gibbons' Stalking The Wild Asparagus knows that the lowly cat-tails are actually the cornucopia of the Midwest's great wetlands. Early spring is the best time to find the sweet young shoots of this plant growing up out of the buried, starchy roots, in the shadows of last year's dry brown stalks, near springs and creeks and bogs.

To eat, simply pull the little green fingers away from the root, peel it down to the crunchy white center and munch away. If you prefer your greens cooked, boil the shoots for about 20 minutes, splash on a little butter and pepper, and enjoy!

Marsh Marigolds
Caltha palustris

Also called cowslips, masses of these bright yellow flowers and their heart-shaped leaves cover the wetlands early each spring. The tiny flower-buds can be picked and pickled for a delicious munchy all year long. Use Schuler's Preserving the Fruits of the Earth for lots of interesting ways to pickle wild foods.

Wild Leeks or Ramps
Allium tricoccum

You'll find these delicious natives in woodlands all over. In early spring, their bright green leaves overtake patches of the woods floor, and that's the time to mark the patch. The foliage later dies away as the plant's onion bulb grows fat and sweet underground for later harvesting.

Look for these wildlings right after the snow melts away. Sliced and cooked in butter, the greens are delicious. Use the bulbs as you would any other onion. These, too, are wonderful as pickles.

Why endure food-cost inflation when you can learn to feed yourself and your family for much, much less? Foraging isn't just a fun and fulfilling pastime anymore. In this new era of food insecurity, it's a responsible and sensible frugality.