Lunch at a Wild Trail-Side Cafe : Recreation: Wild Food Outings offer even casual hikers the chance to discover which plants and insects are safe to eat--even if they aren’t exactly appetizing.

Christopher Nyerges pulled a small jar of seasoning salt from his backpack and sprinkled some on the salad he had just concocted of weeds.

Someone asked, “Isn’t that cheating?” It was halfway into one of Nyerges’ Wild Food Outings, the time he and his hikers sit down to eat the leaves, stalks and berries they have gathered along the trail.

Nyerges, 35, who leads these edible outings every weekend or so, took the cheating question seriously. “Everybody always asks something like that,” he said. “But I don’t go by any rules. I usually carry salad dressing, but I forgot it today.”

Because he tells hikers which wild plants are safe to eat, Nyerges said it is often assumed he is trying to make a statement about survival in the wilderness. He is, but it may not be the statement one expects.

“Can you live off the land? Of course you can. But that’s not what I’m telling people they must do. I’m not saying you shouldn’t grow your own food or buy it at the store,” he said.

“I’m just trying to promote the idea that there is a lot of food, and actually a lot of resources besides food, that goes to waste--resources you can use to save money, that you can use to improve your diet, certainly that you can use if you get lost outdoors. . . .”

Nyerges, a teacher at L.A. City College and author of the books “Urban Wilderness” and “Wild Greens and Salads,” began leading wild food walks around the Los Angeles area in 1974.

On a recent Saturday morning, a small group met at an Upper Arroyo Seco trail head, at the end of a suburban block in Altadena. Nyerges often leads his edible outings in this area because it’s an easy canyon to get people in and out of without strenuous climbing.

The groups generally include six to 30 walkers of all ages who pay $10 each for the privilege of sharing Nyerges’ hiking and edible-hunting expertise. Nyerges tailors his presentation to the participants’ level of outdoor sophistication.

The first thing he pointed out on this tour was a common plant in the area: poison oak. He taught the walkers how to recognize the plant’s distinctive leaves, which were turning red and yellow.

“You can touch the bare stalks even in the wintertime and get a rash,” he said. Yet Nyerges eats poison oak without ill effects. “Many of the Indian tribes ate it also and developed immunity. I usually eat the young, tender leaves that are newly emerging. But I’m not recommending it,” he said.

In the history of his tours, he said, only four hikers have suffered reactions to their trail-side meals, none of them serious. One, a hiker with an allergy to tomatoes, got sick from ingesting some tomato-like berries; three others developed rashes after rubbing laurel on their skin.

“When I used to experiment years ago, I vomited up my share (of plants and berries),” Nyerges said. “I no longer experiment. (And) I recommend that people do not experiment, period. You either know what it is or you leave it alone.”

There is a lot to learn, and after two to three hours of walking in Nyerges’ tracks, amateur outdoor gourmets realize just how much they don’t know.

As the group walked by a mugwort plant, Nyerges borrowed some matches from a hiker and showed how to rub the leaves into a little ball and light them.

Nyerges, who studied for 12 years with an Iroquois medicine man, demonstrated how Indians made huge smoldering mugwort cigars to move fire from one encampment to another.

When Nyerges began adding western black nightshade berries to the growing collection of leaves and berries in the plastic soon-to-be-lunch bag he was carrying, several hikers looked shocked.

“Nightshade is always considered poisonous, but it’s no more poisonous than a garden tomato plant,” said Nyerges. “If you eat the green fruits or raw leaves, you’ll get sick, but no one even considers eating garden tomato leaves,” he said.

Further up the trail, Nyerges pointed out a truly poisonous plant, the lantana, which can look dangerously like a raspberry bush.

Nyerges maintains you can use wild plants from your yard or neighborhood for 20 to 50% of your diet with no significant change in your lifestyle.

Carob, for example, is a rich source of calcium, and carob trees are common throughout Southern California, said Nyerges. Another weed that’s found all over the world is purslane. Nyerges added a bunch of purslane to his salad bag. “I’ve had it with eggs. I’ve had it in soup. I’ve sauteed it with cheese. Purslane has a good crisp flavor. And the entire above-ground plant is edible.”

When the group reached a small stream in the canyon, the hikers took out their bowls, cups and eating utensils. Nyerges showed everyone how to fill their cups from the flowing part of the stream, which he has tested and found to be safe for drinking.

“But, uh, which bugs are edible?” asked one hesitant hiker.

“Virtually all of them,” said Nyerges. “But you’ll probably eat more aphids when you have a salad from a top hotel than you will here.”

He took a cutting board and knife from his backpack and chopped up all the wild plants he had collected in his plastic bag. He added a piece of a prickly pear cactus: “It’s got a nice crunch, like a green pepper.”

“People tend to say, ‘Well, this kind of looks like at home, it doesn’t look like a lot of slop.’ And if you have a bottle of salad dressing, well, suddenly it’s a real salad,” said Nyerges, who concedes that he most always carries onions to add to the salad.

While Nyerges tossed the salad, his hikers talked about survival. Could they, as individuals or as a group, survive in this canyon for a year? No doubt about it, said Nyerges.

“If you’re hoping to survive up here totally, there are fish and animals, and there are also grass seeds. If you combine grass seeds with legumes, such as wild peas, you get a complete protein,” he said.

Historically, said Nyerges, people in cultures around the world have used this sort of information to help them survive when they were lost or forced to evacuate their homes.

Nyerges thinks of wild food collecting as more than something to do with a Saturday morning. It is a skill that every city dweller ought to develop, he said, noting that all the edibles found on his walks, with the possible exception of watercress, can be found on city walks as well.

“People have the idea that somehow in order to collect good wild plants you have to go far away from home,” said Nyerges. “That’s a false idea. I often do outings in vacant city lots.”

Tim Snider, 40, of Pasadena, has been on several wild food outings. He said that even if Nyerges talks about the same plant more than once, he has another story about it for each retelling.

“I don’t necessarily use what I learn, but I file it away,” said Snider. “I’ve taken backpacking classes and amused the other people by grazing on the plants as I go. You discover that when you’re in a pinch, there’s always something out there. That’s good to know.”

Upcoming Wild Food Outings, conducted by Christopher Nyerges and his assistants, are scheduled for the following dates and places: Aug . 11, 8 a.m., Upper Arroyo Seco, Altadena; Aug . 18, 8 a.m., Millard Canyon, Altadena; Aug . 25, 8 a.m., Upper Arroyo Seco, Altadena; Sept. 1, 9 a.m., Switzer’s Camp. Each outing lasts 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Bring a cup, bowl, canteen of water, eating utensils (or you’ll make chopsticks on the trail) and notebook. Dress comfortably. Reservations are necessary. Send $10 (half price for seniors and hikers under age 14) per outing to: Survival Services, P.O. Box 41834, Los Angeles, Calif. 90041. For more information, call (213) 255-9502.

Susan Perry is a Los Angeles-based free-lance writer.