Identification
Plant identification in various parts of the world is difficult at the best of
times, even if you have a book telling you their Latin names and accom
panied by photos. The same plant may look different depending on your
location or the time of year, and this is not easily gleaned from most
guidebooks. Some plants are safe to eat, abundant, and easily identified,
but for the most part reading a book is not the way to learn about most
wild edibles. You really need an expert on the local vegetation to offer you
firsthand education on location: you should smell it, touch it, taste it. Then,
when the time comes, you’ll know it.
Availability
Contrary to popular notion, wild edibles often are not plentiful. There
are some regional exceptions, such as coconut trees on tropical islands
or prickly pear cacti in the Sonoran Desert. But even with coconuts, once
you’ve eaten what’s fallen on the ground and knocked down what you can
reach with a stick, you’ve got to climb 30 to 60 feet (9 to 18 m) up the tree
to get at the rest, and that’s not easy to do.
The truth is, you might have to walk for miles before you find a sin
gle wild edible. When I was in the Amazon, the only significant source of
fruit I found was in an overgrown jungle area that had previously been a
farm. Otherwise there was nothing but big green leaves everywhere, which
my Waorani teachers didn’t eat.
Even while spending a year in the wilderness in northern Ontario,
my wife, Sue, and I found only one or two places where the blueberries and
raspberries grew so thick that we couldn’t eat all of them in one sitting.
Season
Most wild edibles, especially fruits, grow only at certain times of the year.
Latitude
The availability of wild edibles is regionspecific. As a rule, the farther you
are from the equator, the less abundant wild edibles become. So if you’re
in the Rocky Mountains, the best time to find wild edibles is really limited
to spring and berry season. Everything but berries is unpalatable and dif
ficult to digest.
Food (^) | 183