The Wild Food Cookbook

368 Pages·2014·12.43 MB·English

by  Roger Phillips

The
WILD FOOD
COOKBOOK
ROGER PHILLIPS
The Countryman Press
Woodstock, Vermont
Contents
INTRODUCTION
chapter 1
LEAVES, SHOOTS, FLOWERS & HERBS
chapter 2
TEAS
chapter 3
DANGEROUS EDIBLE PLANTS
chapter 4
SEAWEEDS
chapter 5
DESERT PLANTS
chapter 6
MUSHROOMS
chapter 7
BERRIES & FRUITS
chapter 8
NUTS & SEEDS
chapter 9
ROOTS & SAP
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

INTRODUCTION
W
hen I was seven, an eccentric, bohemian teacher at my school used
to send me and my classmates into the local wilderness of suburban
London to find sufficient nettles for our lunchtime soup. Thus began my
lifetime love affair with wild food.
When I was 47, I decided to combine my love of nature with my love of
food, so I produced a book that would help like-minded people to find,
cook, and enjoy some of the numerous wild plants that have been known
for centuries to be edible. Once Wild Food was published in Europe, my
mind kept wandering to North America. What kinds of edible plants grew
in abundance, waiting to be collected and consumed? Finally, curiosity
overcame common sense, and I decided to tackle the huge task of
exploring the edible wild plants of North America and publishing an
American Wild Food. As the venture would take several years to
complete and would necessitate traveling thousands of miles to find,
collect, cook, and photograph the plants I needed, my wife, Nicky, and I
decided it had to be a family affair—and we would take our baby
daughter, Phoebe, with us.
So twice a year, we packed our bags, displayed ABSENT ON LOCATION
signs on our London studio, and went on the road. Everyone thought we
were crazy traveling with such a tiny tot (she was three months old when
we began), but although there were a couple of occasions when she did
succumb to germs and jet lag, basically she loved the excitement of new
places and faces; and she soon became an avid berry and mushroom
hunter—and taster too! How many little English girls of three have visited
the Great Lakes and the Grand Canyon, the Cascades and the
Appalachians, the Sonoran Desert and Skyline Drive? America has now
become her second home, and within minutes of landing on US soil she
is saying, “Hi, guys,” as though she had been born and bred to it.
THE AIMS OF THIS BOOK
In producing Wild Food, I have tried to do two things that I felt had not
been covered before in one volume.
First, I wanted to make sure that the book could be used as a basic
reference for all the best-known recipes traditionally associated with wild
food—cranberry sauce, blueberry muffins, dandelion coffee, lime tea,
elderflower wine, cattail shoots, wapato roots—and so I have included all
the standard recipes. But second, I wanted to go farther than this. By
exploring and developing some of the other fascinating sources of wild
food, such as seaweeds and mushrooms, I could show that there were
several groups of wild plants that had been left largely unexploited, and
yet they provide a great many of the most nutritious and tasty dishes for
the adventurous food hunter’s table.
Two principles have guided my choices throughout. I have included
only those plants that can be found in sufficiently large quantities to make
eating them worthwhile—and, much more important, those plants whose
survival will not be endangered by gathering them for the pot.
Furthermore, I have tried to select one or two really successful recipes for
each plant rather than include all possible recipes. The rationale for this
is illustrated by the mushrooms. In the recipes in the mushroom chapter
almost any of the 50 or so species that appear in the book can be used
successfully. But the actual recipes selected for each species are those
that, after numerous testing-and-tasting sessions, I think best suit the
flavor and texture of that particular mushroom.
The recipes have been gleaned from a variety of sources. Historical
research into old cookbooks, explorers’ diaries, traders’ accounts, and
anthropological studies of Indian tribes and customs revealed an
enormous number of ideas about how to cook wild plants, many of them
far too elaborate and impracticable for modern cooks, but nevertheless
fascinating reading. I am also indebted to numerous contemporary
authors and magazines for recipes I have either quoted verbatim or
adapted slightly to suit my ingredients; and last, and by no means least, I
have regularly invaded the kitchen of friends and acquaintances to steal
their cherished secrets.
As a result of this research, I collected a wide variety of recipes—far