Sunday, February 15, 2009

Eating Weeds

Forty-some years ago, I was in college, and my Anthropology 101 professor said something so shocking that it has stayed with me ever since. He said that over the millennia, humans have always lived as hunters and gatherers and that it was only in ‘recent’ times that we invented agriculture. He also pointed out that agriculture is a human experiment that might someday fail and that we could conceivably revert to the tried and true, hunting and gathering. He said that civilization as we know it could be the aberration and that the pockets of ‘primitive’ people still remaining could represent mankind’s true success story. Pretty heavy stuff to lay on eighteen-year-olds!

As I consider his words now, there is no way that Gaia can sustain 7 billion human hunter/ gatherers, especially with natural ecosystems so degraded. But hunting and gathering can be supplementary means of feeding ourselves as long as we respect the limits of nature and do not overharvest. That said, I have not yet reconciled myself to hunting, though I do not fault those who cull over-populations of wild animals and then make good use of their takings; I would rather an animal be wild and free until the moment of its death than raised in overcrowded pens on huge agri-farms. But the gathering aspect suits me just fine.

Of course, being a city girl, food is supposed to come in plastic packages in the produce aisle, or from carefully tended home gardens. Harvesting from the wild is a bit scarier, so I got some help. A local nature center offers classes in collecting wild foods, and I signed up. It turns out that dollar weed, a local pest, is actually in the carrot family and completely edible. So are our poor man’s pepper, dock, henbit, wild onions, and many other ‘weeds’ I’ve been throwing into the compost bin. And the yaupon holly bushes that grow wild on our island can be used for making caffeinated tea!

I came home from the course with the book Edible Plants of the Gulf South, which is specific to our region. Since then, I’ve purchased The Complete Guide of Edible Wild Plants, Mushrooms, Fruits, and Nuts: How to Identify, and Cook Them, and Florida’s Best Fruiting Plants: Native and Exotic Trees, Shrubs, and Vines. I’m still not sure how to prepare some of these plants – instructions are sometimes a bit vague. I’m completely new to this! I need details! I’m hoping that as I gain experience, the confusion will dissipate.

I still find it odd to walk out into the yard, pull a weed from a flower bed, and throw it into our evening salad. I’m going to take it slowly, adding the wild harvest a bit at a time until I become more confident. I also intend to buy a good field guide for identifying poisonous plants. I don’t want to make any fatal mistakes!

A recent hurricane took out about half the houses on our island and some may never be rebuilt. That means a lot of land is ‘natural,’ which translates as ‘free salad bar.’ And after spending the last four years unsuccessfully trying to rid my yard of what I have now discovered are edible weeds, I can be assured that overharvesting would be difficult. Thank you, Mother Gaia, you do take care of your own!

No comments: