Food Foraging - Oyster Mushrooms

I've been completely preoccupied by having my house painted, both by hired contractors and by myself. I got so obsessed with it that I've decided not to work on the house at all this week (the contractors finally finished their part) and to try from here on out to limit myself to three hours of house labor per day. Hopefully all this will make it possible for me to get back to blogging more regularly.
Anyway, I was up in New Hampshire this past weekend, helping to organize a big family yard sale. At the yard sale, I ran into a woman I've known for years but who I recently learned is interested in mushroom hunting. We chatted and she told me that Oyster Mushrooms can be found on dead or dying maple trees. As I was driving home yesterday, about 1/2 an hour from my family home, I drove by two large decaying maples with Oyster mushrooms running up it in straight lines, from 2 to 20 feet off the ground. I promptly turned around, parked in front of the house with the maples and knocked on the door. Before I could even finish asking if I could take the mushrooms, the woman at the door said "help yourself". (This gave me even more confidence that these mushrooms were Oysters, because it was clear that I wasn't the first person who had asked to take the mushrooms.) I didn't take all of them (being without a ladder, for one thing), but I did end up with several pounds of beautiful mushrooms. When I got home, I gave some to my neighbors who have taken me mushroom hunting before. I sauteed some up with butter and onions and ate them with some local potatoes - they were absolutely delicious! Then, overwhelmed with how many I had and perplexed by how best to preserve them, I called my friend Frank who has a food dehydrator. I took him a big bag of the mushrooms and got the dehydrator in exchange. Here is what the mushrooms look like: And here is the small cooler I filled: I sliced them up and filled the trays of the dehydrator: they really shrink up when they dry out: I ended up with more than two quart jars of lovely dried mushrooms: We are entering into serious mushroom season around here, where we've had rain and cool weather. I'm really looking forward to harvesting more of what the earth offers up. I love the efficiency of feeding myself with nothing more than the labor it takes to harvest the mushrooms and apples I can find. Hopefully I'll also find the time to pick some wild grapes and make jelly!

Yesterday's Big Haul: Free Squash

I went to a big lunch at the small liberal arts college where I taught until recently. The theme of the lunch, served outside under tents, was local food brought in by local farmers. Every ingredient, other than the salt, was locally procured. The farmers brought in tons, and I do mean tons, of various squash that were used to decorate the grounds and, I suppose, illustrate the bounty of our local farms. People were allowed to take squash home, and here is what I carried back to my car: While we were eating, my friend Katheryn commented on the tendency to eat to excess at buffets, and wondered why we do this. We all agreed on the general explanation that we are disposed to eat, and keep on eating, whenever we find ourselves in situations of bounty, as a disposition, perhaps even genetic, left over from our hunter-gatherer past, when such a dispositon would be crucial to survival. Eat when there is lots of food available, and you are more likely to survive the periods when there isn't enough. If that explanation is right, and does explain our tendency to gorge ourselves when surrounded by piles of free, ready-to-eat food, then I think that it may also extend to my disposition to take as much free stuff as I can fit into my hatch back when I'm surrounded by free, good stuff! After I got all this squash home, I regretted that I hadn't gone back for more.... I wish I had more of the butternuts, and the carnevales, which you see in front, especially since squash stores well. Now I've got a nice store of squash in a basket in my basement, covered with one of these towels.

Free Foraged Food - Part 2 - Green Beans

Fall is the time to put food up for the winter, and I'm doing my part. My neighbors, Sam and Marcia, are good scavengers, and yesterday they brought me these green beans, gleaned from some farm up in Poland, NY, which had been a bit mangled by the harvesting machine: I washed them off, cut off the damaged parts of the bigger beans, blanched and froze them. Here's what I ended up with: I'm glad for the beans, and glad to have kept them from going to waste.

Free Foraged Food - Part 1

I can't believe how long it has been since I last posted! I went to England and Scandanavia for about 6 weeks, where I posted a little, but not much. And since I've been back I've concentrated on getting into a good writing routine, as well as painting my house, getting reacquainted with my dog, and pursuing an unexpected personal project. All this is by way of saying that I've been gone longer than I expected to be, but now I am back, and looking forward to getting back into the bloggy swing of things!

I'm going to a locavore (meaning one who eats local food) potluck tonight, where I'm giving a talk on waste (the topic of the book I'm writing). We are asked to bring a dish with at least one ingredient which is from the local area. I used this as an excuse to forage some lovely apples from a footpath in the Utica Marsh. I had noticed the apples while walking there with a friend recently. So I went back today with a basket and filled it up. I didn't think to bring my camera along, or I would have pictures of the tree. But the tree was loaded, and a man helped me by throwing sticks up into the tree to bring down the apples. Here is what I ended up with: Given how I got the apples out of the tree, they were a bit beat up, which was okay, since I had to cut them up anyway for the pie. I'm going to go back soon with an apple picking basket on a long pole and really stock up for pies and apple sauce. But in the meantime, here is the pretty pie I made with my foraged apples: