#Foraging

[sleight-of-bland]

i am become my father (accidentally opened someones contact in my pocket while foraging serviceberries) (how did this happen)

[lindagoesmushrooming]

Boletus pinophilus

[pagan-stitches]

Midsummer Sweet and Sour Sheep Sorrel Soup with Pork and Green Apple

"In Eldrhimnir Andrhrimnir cooks. Sæhrimnir's seething flesh,— The best of food . . .”

—The Poetic Edda, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

A lot of my feasting centers around pork due to its association in many folk beliefs with abundance and resurrection.

I’m celebrating Midsummer through feasting and foraging medicinal plants from Corpus Christi (the day before the summer solstice this year) through Midsummer Day /The Feast of Saint John.

I adapted this recipe for lunch on Midsummer Eve and Day to incorporate both pork and my most personal Midsummer plant: sheep sorrel.

Sorrel soup is an important spring greens soup in the Slavic world. I started with a basic Czech recipe mixed with a Czech American one using apples, but added pork and eggs to give it more heft, as both days I was eating this before heading out to do midsummer foraging.

I started by chopping 3 slices of bacon and frying it up to render the fat. I then added a sliced pork chop, garlic, and resurrection salt. After the pork browned I added a chopped apple and browned it.

I then added 4 cups of chicken broth and some annunciation salt. I added about 3 cups of chopped sheep sorrel and simmered it while making an omelet with farm fresh eggs the neighbor brought over. After the omelet cooked and Děduška blessed the Solar symbol I added it to the soup. I stirred a little cornflour into about half a cup of milk, added it to the soup, and then let cook for another 5 or so minutes until it slightly thickened.

@rookthebird in answer to your question in response to Děduška with the omelet yesterday.

[milkweedman]

More barry picking on my lunch break at work. People kept asking if they're blueberries... little bit sad, bc these are edible native barries that are EVERYWHERE in this city, and nobody knows what they are or if they're poisonous. Thats true of many of the plants here. It baffles me that I know far more about the plants in this area than people who have lived here their whole lives (I've only been here like 6 years, and lived somewhere with totally different plants before that).

Anyway, I was going to use these for dye, but it occurred to me that I've never actually eaten them and maybe I should try ! I can't eat raw fruit, but i think I'll turn this into jam. It has huge seeds and is both tart and astringent, so jam (and wine) is sort of the best option for these.

I have some sweet whole wheat honey bread with flax seeds and sunflower seeds that I made that I think would go very well with this jam. Hopefully. Like I said, I dont know what they taste like, lol.

[hobbitrex]

Freshly picked happiness🫐

[nolaplantdaddy]

i have a note in my phone with saved coordinates of public fruit & when it'll be ripe. i added this pear tree to that list today 🍐

for those new to foraging, there's also a website called Falling Fruit that is essentially google maps but for edible fruit. that's a great place to start if you need help identifying local trees.

[runby2]

autism is real

[foundways]

fern gall may 25

[melgillman]

My 2025 hourlies!

[zinjanthropusboisei]

Just for the record this is a real problem I'm having. What does one do with a possibly cursed mystery door in the blackberry patch. Besides ignore it and keep eating blackberries...

[pagan-stitches]

Vietnamese Omelet with Foraged Herbs and Peanut Sauce

For lunch today I made an herb omelet. However, I folded the herbs in at the end and did not sauté them. I wanted a nice crunch to contrast with the soft eggs. I used shiso and sheep sorrel in equal amounts and just four burnweed leaves. This was my first time using it and from nibbles while testing my personal reaction to it, I knew it was a very intense herb. In my research I saw it most commonly recommended for use with Asian foods and several people mentioned using it with shiso. Shiso is more commonly used in Korean and Japanese cooking, but it reminds me a little of Thai basil which is amazing with Vietnamese food. Sorrel is used in Vietnamese cuisine where it’s known as Rau Chua (sour leaf).

I found that this quantity of burnweed was perfect (for my taste) with the two larger handfuls of shiso and sheep sorrel. Burnweed is herbal, floral, and slightly bitter.

I am never going to run out of shiso. I’ve lost track of how many patches of it are growing around the house. It’s an invasive and I love the flavor in cooking and herbal tea blends, so I’m harvesting like crazy. It’s drying in baskets around the house.

The sheep sorrel isn’t as plentiful, but I was so, so happy to find a second patch in a glade in the woods behind the house the night before Midsummer Eve.

I used this recipe for inspiration;

[halloweentrickortreat]

Hazel the dormouse out and about foraging 🌰

[probablyasocialecologist]

Analysis of data from dozens of foraging societies around the world shows that women hunt in at least 79% of these societies, opposing the widespread belief that men exclusively hunt and women exclusively gather. Abigail Anderson of Seattle Pacific University, US, and colleagues presented these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on June 28, 2023. A common belief holds that, among foraging populations, men have typically hunted animals while women gathered plant products for food. However, mounting archaeological evidence from across human history and prehistory is challenging this paradigm; for instance, women in many societies have been found buried alongside big-game hunting tools. Some researchers have suggested that women's role as hunters was confined to the past, with more recent foraging societies following the paradigm of men as hunters and women as gatherers. To investigate that possibility, Anderson and colleagues analyzed data from the past 100 years on 63 foraging societies around the world, including societies in North and South America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and the Oceanic region. They found that women hunt in 79% of the analyzed societies, regardless of their status as mothers. More than 70% of female hunting appears to be intentional—as opposed to opportunistic killing of animals encountered while performing other activities, and intentional hunting by women appears to target game of all sizes, most often large game. The analysis also revealed that women are actively involved in teaching hunting practices and that they often employ a greater variety of weapon choice and hunting strategies than men.

These findings suggest that, in many foraging societies, women are skilled hunters and play an instrumental role in the practice, adding to the evidence opposing long-held perceptions about gender roles in foraging societies. The authors note that these stereotypes have influenced previous archaeological studies, with, for instance, some researchers reluctant to interpret objects buried with women as hunting tools. They call for reevaluation of such evidence and caution against misapplying the idea of men as hunters and women as gatherers in future research. The authors add, "Evidence from around the world shows that women participate in subsistence hunting in the majority of cultures."

[julianplum]

🌿 🌹 🌱 🥬 ✨ // nasturtiums // gouache on hot press paper

[lovehina019]