Urban Foraging (for flora not freeganing)

Thanks once again to the authors of the Urban Homesteader for turning me on to foraging for edible flora in my city. It's amazing the amount of food that is growing around you that will go to waste since no one expects to find their dinner growing by the road. Since starting I have found berries of all sorts, apples, pine nuts and some possibly edible mushrooms. (It probably doesn't need to be said but please don't eat mushrooms you find unless you have been taught by an expert since some species will ET YOUR FACE).

The berries have been frozen and/or made into syrups and jam. The apples aren't big or sweet enough to really eat but we're going to try our hand at making apple butter and canning it. (Can you guys guess what people will be getting for the holidays?) The pine nuts are a little harder. You have to get the really big cones before the nuts fall out. When you look inside you'll see hard black seeds covered in black gunk. You need to pry these seeds out and then crack them to get to the edible pine nuts inside. It's a lot of work but I got a decent haul out of just a few cones.

This Saturday I'm taking a plant ID class given by my lovely friend Seb and John and I are hoping to take some mushroom ID classes soon so we can actually eat some of our fungal finds.

What is really killing me about this is that back where I lived in Austin there were pecan trees everywhere. During the fall the sidewalks would be covered with uncracked fallen pecans and we would just step on them. >.< Now if I want pecans I have to pay out of my ears for them. So do me a favor Austin reader(s), come fall head over to Hyde Park and grab some pecans. They aren't hard to crack and can be stored in your freezer (or can be mailed to your loving Mean Green Girl winkwinknudgenudge).

I'll keep you guys updated as I learn more about edible flora and hopefully won't have any horror stories about getting my mushrooms mixed up.