Wilders

 What is it about harvesting food in the wild that is so satisfying? Wild plants have decided on their own to grow in a particular place.  And often they are healthier, more robust, more well adapted to their location than plants that we humans cultivate and set within a boundaried garden. That makes sense I guess, since plants have their own individual needs for topography, sun exposure, nutrients, and shelter. They only grow where they're going to thrive.  

We hear a lot these days about how the age of agriculture started our decline toward a less sustainable world. It is undoubtedly true, yet this farm girl has a soft spot in her heart for agriculture. Driving through farm country, the green rolling hills with fields of corn or soybeans, pastures and cattle, orchards and woodlands are beautiful to me. Yet I know that especially as we've moved toward monoculture, using more and more chemicals, large corporations taking over farms instead of the small and caring farmer, it is clear that we're not on a healthy path. And I wonder sometimes what it was like as a human before agriculture began.

It was a long time ago, and some of that lifestyle is only guesswork. Prehistoric humans were closer to nature, and understood our planet and their surroundings much better than we do these days. They didn't have to read books about the environment, or write treatises about food gathering. They were an intimate part of the world around them. Some experts say they ate mostly meat, but others contend that plants were a large part of their diet. And these were plants that had chosen where to grow, wild plants. Way back then, the plants were much different and simpler. Yet, as now, they were an indispensable part of the world. Ferns, seeds, fruits, and roots were some of the readily available foods. And somehow people had discovered how to heal themselves with plants too. I would love to be a fly on the cave wall and observe how life was back in pre-agricultural times.

Thinking about how I love to harvest wild food, I got to remembering the first time I did that. It was as a young mother living in the mountains of Appalachia. Our house was surrounded with native plants and trees, and state and national forests were close by. The mountain folks, who grumbled about us Yankee transplants, went out in the woods to harvest galax, and knew where on the slopes they were located. They had a code of honor to not pick small leaves, leaving them for next year's harvest. And another wild plant they harvested was ramps. In fact, they were very close-mouthed about where they found them. It was a closely held secret.

I didn't even know what ramps were when I first moved to North Carolina. But I was delighted when a neighbor pointed out that we had a cluster of ramps growing just on our side of the stream running through our property. Our very own ramp bed!  The first time I picked some, I have to say that I didn't use the local technique of cutting the stems above the ground and leaving the roots to grow more for next season. But I learned. And every spring I went out to our ramp cluster and picked enough for several meals before they disappeared.

If you aren't familiar with ramps either, they are a bit like green onions, but much more exciting. Their Latin name is Allium tricoccuem. They like to grow in shaded woodsy places, and they're the first thing to come up that's edible in many southern woods. I don't know if they grow in Iowa. Does anyone else know? A ramp patch only lasts 3 weeks and then disappears as though it was never there, until the next spring. They taste kind of garlicky, oniony and pungent, and I think virtually everyone cooks them before eating (though I could be wrong). Their leaves look a bit like leeks with a purple streak up the side of the leaf. And you eat everything, the white bulb at the bottom and the whole stalk. 

So that is the first wild plant that I discovered and ate. I haven't had ramps for a good forty years now. I think I might have to write next time about wild plants that I've harvested more recently. In the meantime, if you have favorites, you can share that by commenting below this post!