It is the little ironies in life that often
make the days meaningful. This past July while on an annual canoe trip with 16
other wonderful humans in Frontenac Provincial Park we spied some amazing and
abundant chanterelle mushrooms. These beauties foraged by my friend Karl added
much needed umami to the canoe trip menu that I had prepared.
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| Chanterelle mushrooms, foraged during a summer canoe trip in Frontenac Park, await their fate of a warm butter bath. |
Driving home after the trip a little
exhausted, forlorn, hung over yet exuberant from four days and nights in the
forest I was flipping through the park guide when I stumbled upon an
interesting ad proclaiming, “I Eat
Weeds”.
The ad was intriguing in it’s simplicity
and straightforwardness. Those three words brought back memories of foraging in
the near and distant past. Growing up in Labrador we often spent August roaming
the hills in search of Blueberries and partridgeberries (otherwise known as lingonberries). Later in my culinary career while working at Fid cuisine in
Halifax under chef Denis Johnson we occasionally served purse lane and lambs
quarters brought in by local gardeners. On a trip to Newfoundland a few years back
I went chanterelle hunting with my good friend and chef de cuisine at Raymond’s
Restaurant in St. John’s.
Foraging for our food is such a natural act
yet in our modern society the proclamation “I Eat Weeds” seems totally out of
step with the direction we are heading in. I contacted Lisa Pedersen through
the contact information on her “I Eat Weeds” advertisement to ask her about her
efforts to educate folks on how we can all benefit from foraging in our
gardens. We agreed we would make a short video explaining what she does.
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| Lisa Pedersen and one of her "pet" chickens. Not only are the eggs a happy by product but chickens help keep pests under control in an organic garden. |
Pedersen got started with foraging through
a you-tube video initially but soon her research brought her to pioneer women
who learned to work with what they had around them. Canadian classics like
Susanna Moodie’s “Roughing it in the Bush” became foraging research material as
Pedersen searched for information on edible species.
Through trial and error Lisa and her
husband have developed recipes for the edibles they collect on and around their
property at Desert Lake just north of Sydenham. Lisa has organized workshops
and informal talks for others who wish to take advantage of this healthy and
free food source.
If you have an interesting food story to share drop me a line, I am always interested in the choices folks make to help secure a healthy food source.