Guess What I Found

People go to Farmer's Markets, or out to orchards to pick apples where someone else did the tending and shaping of abundance.  Providing a sense of what life was at one time, dependent upon the produce brought to the city by wheezy trucks and wagons, this sort of gathering fills a nesting instinct underscored by shortened daylight.  We want to get ready for what we know is coming, at least here in the north.

Coming out of the stalls of the Market, you will see bushels of apples, squash, cabbages, and the last remnants of corn being carried to cars to be stored or processed into winter goods.  People groan with the heft of 8-quart baskets, filled from trees found at local farms; take the kids, they will love it and maybe pet a horse, which is a good thing.  Expose them to what sort of animal a horse is, and I don't mean one of those ponies outfitted in a harness attached to a rotating frame at the fair.  Find them a horse to see run, touch, learn from.  That is the earth, just as much as apples and more.

But if you weren't near a farm, or were strapped, or just wanted a peculiar, unique flavor, you went looking for it yourself.  When I was young, my Mom taught me how to gather the tiny wild strawberries and thread them on a stem of grass if there was no pail to put them in.  Wild strawberries spread by vining, and so fill prolific patches with the smallest of fruit;  yet it takes a lot of searching to get anywhere near a pint.  But crush them with sugar and spoon onto a slice of spongecake that Mom made, and it beguiled you to think of the redwing blackbirds that dived at you as you bent in the fields, gathering.  Of the funny rock which turned out to be a fossil coral.  Of the swish of a disappearing snake. Of the pheasant feather caught in the tall grass.

We kids would also be loaded into the car with baskets to gather maszlaki, Suillus luteus, a sponge-gilled mushroom with a slippery cap.  This bolete has a symbiotic relationship with larch trees, one of the few conifers whose needles turn yellow in the fall and drop, like deciduous leaves.  My father would peel the mushroom caps, string them, and hang the loops near the furnace in the basement to dry.  It was one of the few things which made him happy.  Ish.  The aroma of a fresh Suillus is filled with pine, of woods, of humus, of tannin, of finding the sticky caps pushing through larch needles, of having olive loaf sandwiches that Mom had packed, hot cocoa in a thermos.

I guess memory motivated me, plus finding books by Euell Gibbons, a fellow who explored nature in terms most city people thought eccentric.  His book, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" became a credo for me; walk around and see what you can find.  Recently, I've realized that I like finding things, thus the sea shells, the fossils, the fungi, and a number of etceteras.  Japanese toothpick holders. Stuff I don't want to tell, and you don't wanna know.

And so, I began to include wild forays into woods, fields, and by the sidewalk; in Tonawanda at the corner of the street over, there grew a hickory nut tree that no one bothered with except yours truly.  I'd get a brown bag and fill it with mostly unhulled nuts, then let them set outside until the green shells peeled away. Hickory nuts are miniature mazes of inner walls and cubbies, very difficult to shell, but I developed a technique requiring a croquet mallet which did less destruction than a hammer.  Bits of autumn, taste from an older world. The tree was unfairly cut down for sidewalk repair, but what can you do?

I found another hickory way out in Wyoming County, a shagbark; I wonder what will become of the world without nut trees.  Fortunately, there are ample black walnut trees through the city, if you don't mind the mess of the black hulls or stubborn shells.  Chinese chestnuts grow in a local small grove on the side of a hill, the nuts are tucked in spiny husks, so wear gloves.  The prize inside is worth it, and is sweet as cake.

Near the chestnut trees is a stand of wild apples, purple grapes that have gone wild, and a patch that yields Agaricus arvensis, the horse mushroom that has an anise-like aroma.  Never take all of anything, you must leave most for the animals and for the living thing to proliferate.  I have dug the crowns of dandelion buds before they sprouted, steamed violet leaves, chopped wood lily leaves into salad, and every year with a friend go out to a woods that offers buckets of wild leeks.

None of this tastes like anything you can get in the supermarket, but what if you don't have a car to get to the lands where these grow?  Look around.  The urban forager can come up with results found on scraps of land along streets and bike paths.  It's a bit of fun, a side hobby of finding as long as you don't mind some folks staring (I don't), or getting permission if the yard belongs to a business (I do).  Foraging does not include helping yourself to what's growing on private property, that's stealing, even if you don't think the inhabitants would want it.

I've been on jury duty, and live a 12 minute walk away from Family Court, some of which goes alongside on and off ramps, a one-way street, and under a bridge. On the walk home, I found catnip, a weedy plant that likes poor soil and is so much nicer than that from the shops, which is usually ground up stems.  Free, compared with $4 a packet is lovely, but then, as said, the metro bus driver waiting at the stand watched what I was doing in the middle of a median running along an entrance ramp.  Well, my cats will be pleased.

Further along, growing packed into the hard ground as they are wont to do, were several Agaricus bitorquis, also known as the Sidewalk Mushroom for they prefer the compacted soil found between curb and cement.  Bus stops.  Related to the supermarket mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, it tastes pretty much the same. With mushrooms, though, I look around for observers, as they like to rescue you from eating toadstools and will grab and throw what you have gotten far away from your body before hoisting you off to the asylum.

I knew about gathering the Slippery Jacks from childhood, but then took courses at the science museum from their mycologist, and a formal study of fleshy fungi in college.  Identification of sixteen edible species keeps me happy, but believe, I very seriously check everything before tossing it into the fry pan.  The most poisonous will grow alongside the innocuous, and tastes just as good.  Amanita phalloides, A. virosa; both will kill you in the most sneaky manner.

First, only half a cap of A. phalloides can kill an adult human; it begins with violent stomach cramps, diarrhea, nausea, dehydration.  After three days, you feel better, however, this is where the other poisons kick in and you end up with kidney failure, cardiac arrest, intercranial bleeding, and pancreatic inflammation. Death occurs in approximately 21% of those who have eaten this monster; others will need a liver transplant.

Have I seen Amanitas growing locally?  Last one I saw was on my school grounds, and got it out of the way after donning latex gloves.  The mycelium is still underground, the mushroom itself is the fruiting body of the business end of fungi.  Just don't mess with anything, unless you are with a trained collector.  I think I'm the only first grade teacher that yammers at the kids about Never Touching a Wild Mushroom No Matter How Pretty.  And if you come over for dinner, I would never serve you anything gathered.

I picked the Agarics, trying to look nonchalant, got home and sauteed them in olive oil for lunch.   They were good, and I'm still alive although it's only been seven hours.  I'm happiest about the catnip, as the complex has taken to mowing down the patch that was on the other side of the fence.  Catnip grows just about everywhere in a city, and once you recognize it's skunky smell, you can't mistake it for anything else.   Come over, I'll show you, at least until the first frost.

Did you ever eat blackberries from the wild growing bushes?  Wasn't it worth the few scratches from the thorns?  Did you sleep better that night from being out in the fresh air, running around with the other kids?  The warm days of autumn become chilly nights as temperatures fluctuate, living leaves curl back and crumple, Mom gets out the water bath canner and puts up applesauce for later days.

Finding where you belong, what you can do for the world, that's even richer than learning the ways our ancestors survived on what they found.  Yet there is something to be said in awareness of seasons, of being congruent with time as we define it, of remembering when fruit trees open their blossoms.  We look forward to markers of the passing of the year, when the first crocus appears, when the first red leaf drops.

What would you plant, if you have a yard?  Lots where houses once were still have gardens run wild, overgrown but still there.  An apple tree can last a hundred years, raspberry bushes will stretch out and spread; birds, deer, and children can still visit them long after you have left, and gather fruit by the handful.

Dip your dream oars into the ocean of mind, let go of the day and ponder the night when you are alone, inside yourself.  I promise you there are gardens between the waves, built from your living kindly; a tree with a nest wherein resides your heart.  Sleep, dog.  Sleep, cat.  Sleep, child once mine.