Do you harvest wild greens/mushrooms/berries/nuts./etc. from your local area for food, /ck/? I've tried using dried dandelion roots to make a coffee substitute, and it tastes like crap. But the greens are quite good in spring. I harvest some other stuff, but sloppy mushroom-picking can get you killed, so, be careful with that.
I get maybe 30lbs of chantrelles every year.
I also get clams and oysters when the tides are right.
No, I'd probably poison myself and dandelion greens taste horribly bitter and shit
Sometimes (very rarely) I'll find the chicken of the woods mushrooms and eat that.
>>8541841
Dandelion greens start out quite mild and tender, then gradually build up bitter glycosides as their sugars are converted by sun and heat. So the key is to get them early, not after they have toughened and become bitter.
It's the same idea with things like bamboo shoots. If you harvest them when they are young, they are tasty. If you wait, they are woody and unpalatable.
>>8541824
In the summer I go blackberry picking, a national tradition.
I enjoy nettle tea so was thinking about harvesting them from the vast swathes near where I get the berries.
I really want to try getting mussels but surely it isn't as simple as collecting the giant mounds of them at the beach, the thousands of them attached to rocks.
I want to try collecting razor clams too, all you need is a tub of salt.
>>8541824
Absolutely. My parents (father mostly) is even more of a forager than I am; he collects wild apples, pears, plums, damsons, blackberries, sloes and anything else he sees while he's out. The only thing he doesn't collect are mushrooms, because it's just too easy to fuck up and my parents don't eat enough mushrooms to care.
>>8542217
Mussels are very easy to harvest, you just grab and twist them off the rock. Then you put them into a bucket of cold water and wait a few hours for them to belch out the sand and grit inside of their digestive tracts.
If you mess up and crack the shell/kill the mussel, the grit will be trapped inside, and your meal will be ruined.
The main risk in mussel harvesting are poisonous conditions like "red tide," which cause shellfish to become toxic to humans. Most places also want you to buy a license to harvest them. Look up "shellfish license" + your area.
>>8541824
>I've tried using dried dandelion roots to make a coffee substitute, and it tastes like crap
You're not too bright OP.
I haven't, but I want to. Any good resources for tips on not killing myself in the process?
>>8545619
Get a field guide (As in: an actual physical book) for the plants/mushrooms/etc in your local area. Bring it with you so you can use it to double-check things as you find them.
Also, many places have local "nature centers" or other places where you can take a short course on this kind of thing. There are also local foraging clubs, etc, that you can get advice from.
Read this years ago, and that scared me off of mushrooming.
>blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2006/11/22/i-survived-the-destroying-angel/
>>8545658
There are plenty of easy to recognize ones, just don't mess around with iffy ones.