Food Summer’s wild edibles 2 in a 3-part series by holly bellebuono and catherine walthers photographs by randi baird Our series on the variety of foods and ingredients you can find on the Island – in your backyard, in fields, in forests, and on beaches – continues with summer’s tasty treats. Plus recipes for rose-hip soup, a salad with fresh raspberries, and sumac lemonade. hile you’re enjoying the beach and the sun, be sure to include nature’s summer bounty in your W day. It’s easy to locate and harvest many useful wild plants on the Vineyard, and even easier to make delicious food and drinks with them. Here are the descriptions you need to find tasty flowers and nutritious greens to go with every meal of the day. Beach peas In the spring, the beach pea plant (Lathyrus maritimus) has beautiful purple or fuchsia flowers amid the pale green leaves. If you look at the same plants again in July and August, you’ll often see hanging pods (similar to common garden pea pods) with three to eight small peas inside. Since the peas are under- sized, it might take too much time to collect for a meal, but they taste like regular peas and can be eaten and cooked in the same way. Beach pea tendrils, located at the tip of the plant, can be snipped and lightly steamed. Look for the beach peas on both the south- and north-shore beaches, in the dunes and around Writer Holly Bellebuono and her daughter, Madia, collect wild roses that were likely once cultivated. Like those of Rosa rugosa, the petals can be gathered to make tea or syrup, or to sprinkle on a fruit salad. 58 martha’s vineyard • july 2009 july 2009 • martha’s vineyard 59 wrack. (Other seaweeds are edible, by the would TVP (textured vegetable protein) way, but bladder wrack is not as tasty.) in stir-fries; mix them with hamburger Irish moss (Chondrus crispus) contains or turkey meat for your burgers; or grind carrageenan and is used commercially as them in a mill to the consistency of flour, Beach peas a thickener as it has the wonderful abil- and use in a one-to-one ratio with your ity to make liquids gel. Many foods can normal wheat flour. This vital plant is all- benefit from a little nutritious Irish moss too-often pulled out as a weed; instead, added in: soups, puddings, chilled salads. put it to use all season long. There’s even a recipe for Irish moss lem- onade in A Foraging Vacation: Edibles from Purslane Maine’s Sea and Shore by Raquel Boeh- Fat, juicy leaves are often neglected mer (Down East Books, 1982). The best when choosing wild foods, but they are way to experiment with Irish moss is to prized among those who seek mild tasty gather it fresh and dry it on large screens treats. Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) often – outdoors in shade or indoors in a well- grows in gardens and in shady, cultivated ventilated space or even in an oven on places, and it is a creeper, so look for it very low heat. Once all the water is gone, spreading out among the vegetables or store it in sealed bags. When ready to landscaping plants. It often shows one use, shake the seaweed to remove excess yellow flower near the top. The entire high-tide marks, or along beach paths. used in a similar manner: chopped and sand, and reconstitute by washing in sev- leaf is succulent and can be added whole Collecting the peas is a good activity for eaten in stir-fries, or soaked in vinegar eral changes of water before cooking it. to many raw dishes. This is one of those kids inclined toward foraging. to create a mineral-rich salad dressing. Or, if using fresh plants, wash in several plants that is nice to snip, here and there Their roots, which are quite difficult to changes of water and simmer on low heat as you work, to add to salads at mealtime, Blackberry (see raspberry) dig up but well worth it, are valuable in whatever recipe you choose (the plant because the rounded, fat leaves add a Irish moss sources of iron. (See recipe for a home- must be cooked prior to eating it). Small sweet crunch. Many foragers harvest the Burdock and yellow dock made vinegar on page 65.) amounts are generally called for. nutritious leaves, but the stem can be Burdock (Arctium lappa) leaves are silvery eaten too, usually pickled, and the seeds green, wide, and wavy; its cousin yellow Cat brier quick recipe: Irish moss pudding can be ground to flour. (The seeds form dock (Rumex crispus) has long, narrow, The trails throughout up-Island are To make pudding, use a 1/2 cup of fresh just behind the flower, in the leaf cluster; and often speckled, reddish-brown leaves. rampant by mid-summer with a looping, Irish moss to set a quart of milk. Wash the carrageenan before removing it from grows to six feet or taller and has devel- they can be harvested after the flowers While they look different, they are gener- climbing vine that leans out into the path the seaweed in cold water for 10 minutes the milk. Add a 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 oped tiny brown seed clusters, harvest have dropped away, and hung in bunches ally found growing in the same poor- to with tiny twisting tips. This is cat brier before placing it in cheesecloth that you teaspoon vanilla, a pinch of salt, and a the seeds; these are highly nutritious and in a paper bag to encourage ripening.) medium-quality soil (such as along road- (Smilax rotundifolia). As the species name suspend in the milk. Simmer for 30 min- pinch of nutmeg, cocoa, or coffee for fla- can be used in a variety of ways: Sprinkle Chilmark gardener Elizabeth Gude likes sides and yard edges) and the roots are implies, the leaves are rounded; they are utes. Squeeze the cheesecloth to release vor. Pour into bowls and chill for 1 hour. them on your oatmeal; use them as you using purslane and lamb’s-quarters as leathery and slightly heart-shaped, com- ing to a point at the tip. Those swaying Lamb’s-quarters tips that reach out to brush against you Nearly every garden on the Vineyard as you hike the trail are actually edible, Cat brier sprouts lamb’s-quarters (Chenopodium and the last three inches of the tips make album), which, if given the chance, can a succulent, crunchy addition to salads. provide many meals. In your garden or The small flowers elsewhere on the plant anywhere the soil is disturbed, look for are nondescript and not edible, and in the silvery green plants with serrated leaves fall they put forth tiny, blue berries that growing alternately up the stem; upper are also not edible. Cat brier is consid- leaves are smooth and the entire plant ered an emergency food – useful to know has a mealy, dusty appearance. This if you are ever lost. “dust” will rub off on your fingertips and sparkle like silver, though it in no way Irish moss affects the flavor or safety of this valu- Irish moss seaweed can be found on able wild food. The leaves are delicious many New England shores and is a red and nutty eaten raw, or they can be algae. The fronds are generally three to steamed as a vegetable. Some people boil six inches long and sport a deep reddish- them, but this can make them slimy and holly bellebuonoholly purple or green color. These forked and disagreeable. Raw, however, they provide Lamb’s-quarters Burdock and yellow dock, displayed by curled fronds grow in clusters, and have the same nutritional content as spinach. Holly Bellebuono. no sacks on them like you see on bladder Later in the season, as lamb’s-quarter 60 martha’s vineyard • july 2009 july 2009 • martha’s vineyard 61 but don’t neglect the leaves of the first tonic. Valued for its ability to heal eczema carotene, fruit acids, and fatty oil, and are candies. For a delectable brunch, include year canes, which make a wonderfully in children, as well as to treat bronchitis prized for their high content of vitamin some of these unique candies in your nourishing tea. This tea has been valued and whooping cough, red-clover tea can C. Chop the hips and cover with boiling next batch of homemade granola, add by midwives for centuries for toning the also be drunk by anyone who wants to water to brew a zesty tea, or remove the yogurt, and top it off with fresh fruit and uterus during pregnancy (these days enjoy its naturally sweet, honey flavor. seeds and hairs to make a heavenly syrup rose-hip syrup. Gather the rose petals there is some controversy about using Gardeners plant this member of the leg- to pour on pancakes, éclairs, and even from an area where you know they have it in the first trimester), but anyone can ume family, since the roots fix nitrogen frittatas. Brew a handful of rose petals for not been sprayed with chemicals. (See drink it. Extremely high in calcium, in the soil. Marie Scott, a forager and a delicate, calming tea that goes beauti- recipe for rose-hip soup on page 64.) raspberry leaf tea has an astringent taste; farmer who grew up on the Vineyard and fully with afternoon sugar cookies, or if you enjoy dry bitter teas such as Earl now winters in Vermont, gathers red- use them to make a syrup (much milder The first installment in this series is on our Grey, you’ll likely enjoy raspberry leaf tea.