Deep in the Woods of Virginia
Written by Laura Frable
My home is deep in the woods of Virginia. I have lived there for more than twenty years with the deer, the bear, and the bobcat. Our dirt seems to have no natural calcium and is not suitable for growing the beautiful tomatoes I dreamed about when we first bought the property. I love to garden, but I can only grow vegetables like tomatoes and peppers in containers on my back deck where the critters do not go, and the calcium can be well regulated. In my part of Virginia, the earth is hard red clay with shale rock and white quartz.
Our woods are full of vegetation but not the kind one normally would eat. We have seen signs that Native American folk once lived on the land here, and we know they had to eat something. I looked to what naturally grew. I discovered tiny iris and wood hyacinth, huckleberries, pigweed, dandelion, clover, redbud tree seeds and flowers, lamb’s quarters, chickweed, chicory, wood sorrel, horsetail, lady’s thumb, Kudzu, violets, mulleins, oyster mushrooms, chicken of the woods, and thistle. These plants from the woods and yards of Virginia are a forager’s dream and readily available for picking.
If you plan to forage, do your research and find out what needs to be cooked or is tasty in its raw form. The nice thing about foraging is that God had done the planting for you. You need only to find it, pick, clean, and prepare it to eat. Make sure you know what you are picking and when to pick it. For instance, if you would like to eat redbud seeds, choose them as soon as they are on the tree, sauté them in a bit of butter and eat them as you would snap peas. Add a little salt, and they are delicious.
We have made flour from both acorns and clover. When making acorn flour, peel off the shell and place them in a mesh bag and then place the bag of acorns in a swiftly moving creek for a few days. Soaking in running water removes the bitter tannin in the nuts. Finally, allow the nuts to dry well and grind them into sweet, nutty flour. My children enjoyed the gooey brownies that I made with the flour. Clover flour is easier to make; wash, dry, and grind into flour. You can use the flour to make delicious huckleberry pancakes. Clover is also fabulous as part of a salad, with young Kudzu (cut very fine), lamb’s quarters, early dandelion greens, and tiny violets. A warm mustard dressing is perfect with this.
Thistle tastes like asparagus but needs special preparation. Wear gloves when handling thistle and peel or cut off all the prickly parts before you sauté and eat it. Thistle is good in a stir fry with mulleins, chicken of the woods, and oyster mushrooms.
Make sure you do your foraging where you know that no one has sprayed. You want to know you are eating clean, uncontaminated plants. One of the best things about foraging is that you know nothing is genetically modified. We do not know precisely how genetically modified food will affect us in years to come.
Most of all, enjoy your wanderings and gathering while you spend time appreciating what God has planted for you to pick.
