The New Naturalism : Nature Market: A Walk on the Wildfood Side

It’s mid-morning on a crisp fall Saturday in Pasadena, and a number of us are paying a visit to the supermarket of the swamps. It does not look much like a supermarket, but rather like a thicket of cattails.

We are reassured, however, and then convinced that we are indeed in a supermarket by our guide and commentator Christopher Nyerges, who knows about such things. He tells us that both the cattail rhizome and the yellow pollen on young, green spikes can be pounded into nutritious flours. The plant’s young shoots, when peeled to a white, fleshy core, are an eminently edible vegetable called “cossack’s asparagus,” and the young spike, steamed and buttered, tastes like corn on the cob.

The fluff on the cattail itself is great for insulation and as a fire starter. And naturally the reeds can be woven into mats and baskets. All in all, the plant provides warmth, covering, and a variety of tasty food.

If we’d still like to shop elsewhere for lunch, Nyerges tells us, perhaps we should look a few yards away, to a shallow pool that the cattails haven’t over-run. That bright green algae swirling around the edges? Well, it tastes like pumpkin and is a little crunchy. We could saute it with an onion, or make it into a soup.

“Scum soup,” Nyerges says. “It will keep you alive.”

Nyerges conducts wild food and survival skills outings many Saturday mornings out of the year. This one, which focuses on the swamp environment, meets where the local Indians of Pasadena used to live, that is to say, right under the Colorado Street Bridge and the 134 Freeway. The stream here has been restrained with concrete banks and man-made water slides, yet prehistoric riverine vegetation grows virulently, along with some of the compatible European plants that came over in the 18th century and later. As we tramp along cars and trucks rumble far overhead.

A lean, fit fellow in his mid-30s, Nyerges spent most of his Pasadena boyhood hiking in the San Gabriels. An interest in Native American crafts and skills, he says, was a natural extension of so much time spent out of doors. “I was intrigued that people lived here for thousands of years without stores. Yet they somehow made it, and I wanted to know how.” Much of what he knows about the uses of wild food comes directly from Native American tradition. “Knowledge of wild plants is one part of the larger picture,” he says.

He started out thinking of wild food as a commodity, something to be used, but as he learned more about aboriginal ways of thinking, he saw that using up the earth’s resources was exactly one of the attitudes which was bringing the planet to the brink of destruction. Aboriginal peoples, he says, regard plants as living things, and thus treat them with regard and restraint and reverence.

The first plant he identifies as edible is growing along the curb of the parking lot. It’s a small tumbleweed. Nyerges pinches off the tender tops and tells us that we can chop them up fine, steam them and serve them with butter. They’re like spinach or chard, only they don’t lose bulk. In the desert, they can be a lifesaver. These, right here, however, might not be so good to eat. As a rule, he says, it’s best not to eat plants that have grown too close to the road since they might be toxic from car exhaust.

We meet the common plantain, also called goose tongue, a squat weed with edible, but tough and bitter leaves and seeds that function, like psyllium, as an intestinal cleanser. Then there’s the lemonade berry on an oak-like shrub: Soak the berries in water for a lemonade-like drink; as such, it was one of the few sources of sugar available to Native Americans.

We stop to admire the hundreds of acorns underfoot and learn that, under the cap and beneath the rind, there’s a white meat so full of tannic acid, it’s inedibly bitter. This acid can be leached out with repeated long boiling, after which the meats can be dried and ground into a passable flour for cakes and breads and pancakes. They have a flavor, Nyerges says, like graham crackers.

An hour into the outing, the world appears to be very different: Everywhere we look, there is food. Food on trees, food in the water, food on the ground. How have we come to be so far from our earthly ties that we can’t recognize food except when it’s packaged and labeled and priced in a supermarket?

Amazed, we shake seeds from common grasses and learn that any grass seed that’s mature and not moldy can be safely eaten. We sniff laurel sumac, which is a natural bug repellent, and sample epazote, an unprepossessing weed with a beguiling, pungent clout similar to that of cilantro. When added to soup or beans, epazote imparts a distinctive spiciness and effectively prevents flatulence. Then there’s the bitter mint called horehound, popular for teas and candy, and curly dock with its sour, vinegary greens.

California buckwheat, with its gorgeous, deep russet blossoms, sounds and looks more promising than it apparently is. “You can take the flower heads, grind them, mix with other flour, make a bread or cake and you’ll have an unappealing food which will give you some indication of what Native Americans were willing to eat,” says Nyerges. “It won’t remind you of buckwheat.”

When gathering wild food, Nyerges instructs us to take only what we need. Don’t uproot whole plants for a few leaves. Pick leaves carefully and selectively, so the plant will keep growing. Think of beauty, of the next foragers, and the next generation of plants.

As we move along, Nyerges thus collects leaves for our luncheon salad. He entrusts the plastic sack full of greens, however, to the eight-year-old boy of our expedition. As any self-respecting boy will do, he twirls the sack, beats it against every tree trunk and cement wall he finds, and when utterly bored, proceeds to stuff the whole of our promised lunch into his hip pocket. We begin to wonder: Will this sack of bruised greens even be edible?

Meanwhile, we are introduced to the notorious Jimson weed. It’s inedible, but not to worry, nobody would want to eat it anyway; the leaves, when rubbed smell like rancid peanut butter. We also meet snake root, which is toxic, and poison hemlock, which for over two thousand years has been famous for curing Socrates of life. Slowly, we recall why it is that we haven’t been eating out of our own back yards and vacant lots. We remember our mothers, frantic, trying to find out if the pyracanthus berries or grass soup or ivy salad we just ate would kill us. Nyerges himself is stern on the subject of poisonous plants. “If you don’t know what the plant is,” he says, “don’t eat it.”

Nyerges empties the plastic bag full of wild greens onto a cutting board he’s brought in his pack. The group pulls out the bowls and forks they’ve brought and watch him expectantly. As Nyerges chops he administers a written test. It’s hard, especially since we’re hungry. He chops the leaves fine and puts them into a bowl. The salad contains wandering Jew, lambs quarters, cattail spikes (cossack asparagus), watercress, curly dock, and cactus. He pours a dressing of olive oil and vinegar over it. The salad is finished, only we won’t be served until we answer all the questions in the little test. The only question I want answered is: Does the salad taste good or not?

First, however, we must recite: Berries that glisten are not necessarily poisonous. Yucca and century plants are not cactus, but lilies. Tannic acid is removed from acorns by what method? We remember: Boiling. Once more, we are called upon to acknowledge that we should not test foods for toxicity either by sampling it in tiny quantities or by watching to see if animals eat it. “Animals get poisoned all the time,” Nyerges says. The only absolutely sure way to avoid toxic plants it to make a positive identification. “If you don’t know what it is,” Nyerges repeats, “don’t eat it.” There are, however, seven plant families which are entirely, or at least primarily, nontoxic. Finally, the test is over and lunch is served. That is, Nyerges pushes some of the dark green glistening mash into each of our bowls.

It is unexpectedly delicious, at once vegetal and flavorful and textural. The cress made the salad peppery, the cossack asparagus made it crunchy, the cactus made it a little bit viscous. A vinegary flavor came from the curly dock and a huge burst of nutrition came from the lambsquarter, or goosefoot. In a manual called “The Analysis of Foods” by the USDA, Nyerges tells us, lambsquarter, compared to all green vegetables, is shown to be the richest source of vitamins and minerals across the board.

For dessert, Nyerges pulls out carob pods. Yes, carob pods, the long, shiny, dark-brown pods about the size of large, flat fingers that grow on the stinky carob trees in so many back yards. It isn’t exactly the European carob that we eat as a chocolate substitute. The pods don’t grind well; but eaten out of hand, the way Nyerges serves them, they are chewy and sweet and mildly chocolatey. They taste like a health-food candy bar, only better.

Nyerges doesn’t advocate a purely wild diet--for himself, or anybody else. But he does assert that the average householder could obtain 10% to 20% of his or her diet from wild foods. “It takes work, it’s not completely easy and it’s not all purely fun,” he says, “but it’s a worthwhile thing to do.” Eating wild food slowly attunes people to what’s outdoors, to what lives and grows in their environment. It makes them pay attention and take care how they walk in the world--after all, they might be stepping on their lunch.

SCUM SOUP

2 tablespoons butter or oil

1 onion, chopped

1 potato, cut into small cubes

1 cup algae

2 cups water

Salt, pepper

Heat butter in saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion and potato in butter until onion is translucent. Add algae and stir. Add water and simmer until potato is fully cooked. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 2 to 4 servings.

CACTUS (NOPALITOS) OMELET

1 tablespoon butter

2 cups peeled and diced cactus pads

1 onion, diced

4 eggs, beaten

Hot tortillas

Heat butter in skillet. Saute diced cactus pads and onion in butter until juices of cactus are released. Continue cooking until juices evaporate and cactus has turned from bright green to light brown. Add eggs and scramble. Serve over hot tortillas. Makes 4 servings.

Note: To pick and prepare cactus pads: Pick young pads carefully, shielding hands with a bag, or scrape spines free of glochidia (little barbed hairs) with knife before picking the pads. Each pad must be cleaned of all spines and glochidia before it is eaten. (Scorching pads over open flame is helpful in removing pernicious glochidia.) Once skin is peeled, dice pad into bite-size pieces.