wild edible – DAiZED AND DISTRACTED

spice up your campsite cooking with wild ginger

today’s wild edible profile is one of my favorites, we’ll be taking a look at wild ginger (specifically, western wild ginger).

this one took me a while to find for the first time since it’s got a number of common lookalikes, and it grows low to the ground so it’s often hidden by other larger plants, but once you find it you’ll start spotting it everywhere! the entire plant is edible, although the leaves and flowers can be quite bitter, so we’re really only interested in its long, trailing roots. let’s take a look at the basic info.

wild edible profile: western wild ginger

western wild ginger (asarum caudatum)

habitat:

typically found in moist conifer forests of the pacific northwest. I found these specimens in an old-growth forest on the Olympic Peninsula.

edible parts:

entire plant, but only the roots are tasty

wild ginger makes a beautiful groundcover with its heart-shaped leaves and growth habit of spreading wide – so in addition to being delicious, it’s a great choice to add to a no-grass lawn as well (I’ve just put some in my own yard this year!).

if you’re lucky, you might see it in bloom – the flowers are unusual looking with long, skinny tapered tips on each of the three petals. they can be hard to spot since they usually grow underneath the leaves, so you’ll have to search low to the ground to find one. they grow this way because one of the ways wild ginger reproduces is by attracting certain types of ants to crawl up inside the flower and carry the seeds away towards their nests.

but the main way wild ginger reproduces is by spreading its long, trailing rhizomes (underground roots) and sprouting new plants as it grows. this is good news for us, since that’s the part we want to eat! 🙂 the rhizomes of wild ginger grow very shallowly, sometimes barely covered by any dirt at all, so it’s very easy to harvest. before you go pulling up plants with heart-shaped leaves though, let’s take a look at some similar-looking plants you might mistake it for.

how to forage for wild ginger

wild ginger has two main lookalikes you’ll often see growing in the same habitats. the first and most common one that you’ll see a lot of is false lily of the valley.

just like wild ginger, these have heart-shaped leaves and grow low to the ground in clusters. they’re a beautiful groundcover as well, and while they can be eaten, they don’t really taste like much. you’ll also want to be careful not to confuse it with true lily of the valley, which is very toxic to people and pets alike. luckily, true lily of the valley rarely grows in the same habitat as the false variety (and likewise, rarely with wild ginger).

the easiest way to tell apart wild ginger from either lily of the valley is simply to look at the leaves. false lily of the valley has shiny, glossy leaves with perfectly straight lines running from stem to tip. compare this to wild ginger’s matte, leathery-textured leaves with their branching, fractal-like grooves, and you shouldn’t have trouble telling the difference!

another key difference that you’ll easily notice in spring and summer is the presence of small white flower clusters poking up from the leaves. as mentioned earlier, wild ginger’s blooms are purple, three-petaled, and grow low to the ground underneath the leaves, so if you see white flowers, you’ll know you’re looking at a false lily of the valley.

another possible lookalike to wild ginger is bunchberry, also called creeping dogwood. like false lily of the valley, the leaves are brighter green and somewhat shiny, but there’s a number of immediate giveaways that we’re looking at a different plant. first, you’ll notice that bunchberry leaves always grow in symmetrical patterns, and they’re missing the telltale heart-like notch at the base of the leaf.

and of course, there’s the flower in the center of each bunch! these pretty little flowers bloom in spring and develop into a clump of red berries later in the summer. they’re totally edible and delicious, so if you see some, don’t skip out on them – but we’ll cover those in another post later on.

finally, all of these lookalikes have one more important giveaway – none of them smell like ginger 🙂 when harvesting wild ginger rhizomes, snap one in half and give it a whiff – it’ll smell crisp and spicy just like the ginger you might buy at the grocery store. once you know what to look for (and smell for), you’ll be finding wild ginger all over the place.

cooking with wild ginger

now for the best part, time to eat! I love finding wild ginger when I’m out camping because it’s a delicious and versatile ingredient to add to just about anything you might be cooking at your campsite. you can use it just like you would any other kind of ginger. chop it up finely, since the texture can be a little woody if you leave the pieces too large, and toss it in a pan to let it get crispy and aromatic before adding it to whatever else you’re cooking (we made fried rice!).

if you don’t feel like cooking, wild ginger also makes an excellent tea (either dried or fresh) and is said to help with stomach aches. or if you’re feeling fancy, the roots can be candied by cooking them in sugar water for a crunchy, spicy snack.

and that’s about all there is to it! I hope you have good luck finding wild ginger on your next hike and get a chance to try it out 🙂

wild edible recipe: fireweed tea

fireweed (chamaenerion angustifolium)

also known as:

great willowherb, bombweed

habitat:

temperate climates, often in barren or disturbed soil such as areas recovering from wildfire

edible parts:

flowers, leaves, and stems

Fireweed was one of my first successful foraging harvests. I’d been spending a lot of time at a cafe where they sold fireweed tea, and it was one of my staple choices when I didn’t know what else to order. It’s a delicious, balanced tea – dark but not tannic or bitter; sweet but not cloying; and it has just a slight hint of something I can’t really describe that makes me think of campfires in the summertime. So when I discovered it grows natively all over the pacific northwest, I couldn’t wait to try making fireweed tea myself. It sounded fun, plus “free” is a hell of a lot cheaper than $8 an ounce or whatever they charge for it at a specialty tea shop.

If you’re looking for fireweed in your area, your best bet is to check places where the soil has been disturbed by fire or forestry. The common name “fireweed” might make you think of the 420 variety, but it has nothing to do with it. The name comes from the fact that it’s often one of the first plants to begin growing again after a wildfire, often prolifically since nothing else has started to grow in its way yet¹. In the UK it’s sometimes called “bombweed” for a similar reason – it was common to see fields of it growing where bombs had fallen during WWII. Nowadays you’ll also often see fireweed growing along roadsides and highways, in open meadows, forest edges, and lots of other places. It’s happy to grow just about anywhere, and there isn’t any concern of overharvesting – the main thing to look out for is to pick a clean specimen. Avoid picking up roadside plants that are drenched in smog from vehicles, or might’ve been sprayed with pesticides.

identification

Identifying fireweed is easiest in the mid to late summer, after the characteristic pink-purple flowers have begun to bloom. It grows tall – sometimes up to 8 or 9 feet (2.5-3m) – so it’s usually easy to spot. Each fireweed plant is composed of a central stalk with long, narrow leaves sticking straight out from it.

When it’s in bloom, the top of the stem will transition from leaves into bright pink flowers, making it even more noticeable. If you’re hunting for it earlier in the summer, you’ll just see clusters of pinkish-white buds.

lookalikes

There’s not much risk of confusing fireweed with another plant as long as you’re paying attention, but two that might look similar from a distance are purple foxglove and lupines.

The key differentiating factor for Foxglove is the flowers: they’re noticeably larger and bell-shaped, instead of fireweed’s small, narrow blooms. They also tend to hang only on one side of the stalk, instead of being evenly distributed all the way around.

For Lupines, you’ll want to look at the leaves. While they are also somewhat long and narrow, the leaves are in separate bunches on multiple stems instead of one central stalk. You’ll also often notice small fuzzy looking pea pods growing on top, since lupines are part of the pea family.

harvesting & edibility

Most of the fireweed plant is edible, though I don’t really recommend eating it raw². The most common preparations are to ferment the leaves as a tea, or (apparently, as I found out while writing this post) to use the flowers to make a jam. I’ll have to try that sometime.

For tea purposes, just grab a stalk and run your hand down it to remove the leaves. I usually get a mix of young and old leaves, since the younger ones tend to be sweeter, so if you only go for those you’ll end up with a much sweeter tea. If you prefer that though, go for it – and grab some flowers while you’re at it, since those can be tossed in with the leaves and will add a significant amount of additional sweetness as well. Personally I find it sweet enough already though, so I stick with just leaves. Read on for the recipe.

recipe: fermented fireweed tea

Ingredients

freshly harvested fireweed leaves (optionally, flowers too – see notes)

Directions

Clean: Rinse to remove any dirt or debris, and dry thoroughly. A salad spinner works great, or you can pat dry and spread the leaves out on a drying rack for a little bit
Ferment: Prepare some clean jars or storage containers with lids to contain the fireweed while it’s fermenting. Taking leaves a handful at a time, tear them a few times and then crush and roll them in your palms to get them to release as much of their natural oils as possible. Add the crushed leaves to the prepared containers and seal the lids. Place them in a cool, dry location for 2-3 days.
Dry: After a couple days fermentation, the containers should have a distinctly sweet scent when opened. (note: There should not be mold, though! if you do have mold, it’s likely that the leaves weren’t dried well enough after washing, and need to be tossed out). Spread leaves in a single layer in a dehydrator. Dry at 90F (32C) for about 4-6 hours or overnight, until leaves are completely dried and brittle.
Store in an airtight container until ready to make tea.

Notes

If you like a sweeter tea, you can also add fireweed flowers to the mix. Treat them the same as the leaves.
500 grams of leaves will result in approximately 100 grams of dried tea

Harvested a big basket of leaves. Noodle approves.

footnotes

1
sometimes fields of fireweed even are planted intentionally after prescribed fires to help restore the soil and prevent erosion! neat 🙂
2
if you do, choose young leaves and stalks. older leaves will be tough and not as flavorful

wild edible recipe: yarrow tea

common yarrow (achillea millefolium)

also known as:

yarrow, milfoil

habitat:

nearly everywhere except parts of africa and southern asia

edible parts:

entire plant

Yarrow is a plant that’s easy to recognize, it’s got these frilly feathery leaves that really don’t look like anything else that I can think of. Mature yarrow plants will also have bunches of little white flowers at the tops that look kinda like queen anne’s lace, but the ones I saw when I took the photos for this post were mostly younger plants, which just have these cute fuzzy balls of future flowers that haven’t bloomed yet.

You can find it pretty much anywhere across the world; it’s native to temperate areas in the northern hemisphere, but has been introduced in much of the southern hemisphere as well. It’s a hardy plant that doesn’t need much to grow, so you’ll often see it widespread in places that other plants have trouble flourishing in – like in sand or on rocky mountainsides. In many places it’s considered invasive, so you don’t need to worry about overharvesting it.

The good news about yarrow is that the whole plant is edible. The bad news is you probably don’t want to. It’s bitter stuff, and has this strong medicinal sort of smell to it. Yarrow is a common ingredient in traditional medicine, and still today there are a lot of claims out there about different health applications of it. But that’s not the kind of forager I am, so we’ll just skip that part, yeah?

Medicinal claims aside, I’ve definitely heard the words “yarrow tea” used in a positive way before, I think. And I like to try everything even if it seems like a bad idea¹, so I have prepared yarrow tea before. Here’s how I made it and what I thought about it.

Yarrow tea recipe – the short version

recipe: dried yarrow tea

Ingredients

freshly harvested yarrow leaves

Directions

Rinse thoroughly to remove any dirt or debris. Dry in a salad spinner if you have one, or just pat dry with a clean towel.
Strip the frills from each leaf stem. They should come off easily by just grasping the stem tightly and running your fingers down it.
Spread yarrow leaves in a single layer in a dehydrator. Dry at 90F (32C) for a few hours or overnight, until leaves are completely dried and brittle.
Store in an airtight container until ready to make tea.

Yarrow tea recipe – the long version

Usually when I pick something I haven’t tried before, I start with the good old scratch-and-sniff technique. It releases all the oils in the leaf, so it’s a good way to get the “essence” of a plant. When I did this with yarrow, I got smacked in the face with a strong, bitter smell. This tempered my expectations a lot of the final result, so I didn’t pick a whole lot of it. Just one or two small plants.

I gave the leaves a good rinse, but didn’t really bother removing the dried out brown leaves. I figured that I’m going to be drying it anyway, so why waste the effort?

The leaves seemed less bitter than the stems, so I focused on those and tossed the stems out. I just sat down and stripped the frilly bits off each stem by pinching them and running my fingers down it.

This was my favorite part actually. Very meditative and satisfying.

I ended up with maybe around a cup and a half of leaves after I was finished. I forgot to actually weigh it though.

These were then spread on a dehydrator tray, along with a bunch of other things I’d foraged that day, and left to dry overnight at about 90 or 100 degrees F.

And after all that effort, the result was a pretty gross tea, at least to my tastebuds. It was really bitter with a strong medicinal/piney smell². My partner didn’t hate it as much as I did, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Could be something you develop a taste for. I could also see some potential usecase where you add this to a sweet tea blend to balance it out maybe.

FORAGING SCORE: 9 / 25

VERDICT: bitter and medicinal, hard pass.

ease of harvesting / preparation	4 / 5 some effort but it was pretty chill, I liked the process of removing the leaves
edibility	2 / 10 I can see this being good as a balancing element in an otherwise sweet tea. also maybe if you like bitter piney flavors you might dig this, idk.
overall enjoyment	3 / 10 it’s quite pretty, I’ll probably plant some in my yard. but not for eating, for me anyway

footnotes

1
especially if it seems like a bad idea
2
actually though I’d describe IPAs in the same way and a lot of people seem to like those, so maybe some people would really enjoy this tea.