Urban Foraging...

Edible "weeds" - or "plants", as I like to call them, have always been of interest to me. There are plants growing out there that I didn't plant, most likely don't have to tend to or care for, AND I can eat them? Sounds like a win-win situation to me ;)

Since I first learned about Chef Rene Redzepi's restaurant, Noma, my interest in foraging and preparing dishes from the found things has grown exponentially. I'm sure the rules and regulations surrounding food and sourcing are a bit different in Denmark; I don't even know how foraged food would fit into our restaurant/catering world here in the states (though I've been doing more research on the subject, and I don't see how gathering wild grown food items is much different than harvesting conventionally grown crops if you know how to properly ID the plants...).

To avoid any land ownership issues, thus far I have been foraging on my own little plot around my house. It has allowed me to really work at identifying the plants growing the closest to me, but not overwhelm me with too much area to work with - urban foraging. It has amazed me just how many of the plants growing in the yard are edible! I've been learning so much about the different types, and have been keeping a journal detailing when certain varieties emerge, which ones you have to be careful with (say, they have poisonous look-alikes, or only certain parts of the plant are edible, etc.) and I've been experimenting with coming up with dishes based on the plants available at the moment.

Last night, we had a beautiful little salad (pictured above) made from the following (all gathered from plants growing in my front and back yards, some cultivated, most growing wild):

~wild mustard greens
~clover greens
~parsley
~lamb's quarter
~henbit (leaves, stems, flowers)
~lettuce
~dandelion leaves and flowers
~tulip petals

Topped with a

~rosemary
~green onion
~mint

vinaigrette