I went foraging with naturalist "Wildman Steve" in upstate NY. here's what we found...
Steve Brill, known to most as Wildman Steve, is an ambling encyclopedia of plant knowledge.
Walking together on a crisp spring morning along the Appalachian Trail in upstate New York, he turned to me:
“Try this”, he cajoled, grinning from under the brim of his gorpcore visor, in attire I’d best describe as jungle-casual.
It was the flower of a garlic mustard, whose mere days-long season —Wildman informed me with an ephemeral pang — had just begun.
This was the first of many foraged courses. To follow were jewel weed, water mint, cattail shoot, dryad’s saddle, river birch, common spicebush, parsnip, burdock root, chickweed, and sassafras.
Read on for my interview of Wildman, including the sushi roll recipe I made from my foraging haul, and his saga with the NYC parks commissioner that led to his overturned arrest on the charge of picking a dandelion.
Harrison (H): Why did you get into foraging?
Wildman Steve (W): After I got into cooking, I was biking for exercise and passed Greek women picking something in Cunningham Park in Queens. I asked them what they were doing, but couldn’t understand a word: it was all Greek to me!
But I came home with a bag of grape leaves, made an unconventional stuffing that was delicious, started reading foraging books and finding the plants one at a time, and experimenting with them in the kitchen.
Fast forward to today, half the food I consume comes from the wild. There are only a handful of people in the country who have this kind of knowledge.
(H): You have been leading foraging tours in the NY tri-state area for decades. How has both public interest in and the general perception of foraging shifted over this time?
(W): I led a tour for 1 person in 1986. Today, my Central and Prospect Park tours sell out at 100 sign ups.
(H): Have you encountered people who are hostile towards foraging? What were their motivations and how did you engage with them?
(W): In 1986, I was arrested by undercover park rangers for eating a dandelion I foraged in Central Park.
The NYC parks commissioner had placed rangers on one of my foraging tours. The rangers kept taking pictures; I’d hold up the foraged specimens so they could get nice pictures, only, I was their specimen. At the end of the tour, they handcuffed me and searched my body. I don’t know if they were looking for weeds or weed! They hauled me off to the police station where they took my mug shot, but shortly thereafter they dropped all charges. Big mistake! I went home and called every newspaper, tv and radio station I could. Next morning on the way to the newsstand, five cops came after me: they all wanted my autograph!
My story got aired on CBS evening news, on Letterman, and so on. I served Wildman’s Five Borough Salad on the steps of the Manhattan criminal courthouse to reporters and passersby, and the press ate that one up too! This is the full story of my arrest.
(H): How does foraging in urban areas such as city parks differ from remote or wilded areas?
(W): Because of the greater variety of habitats in city parks, plus plants brought in from around the world, it’s very hard to cover everything that’s there.
(H): Have you or anyone you know had an incident foraging something toxic?
(W): We had one death when I showed everyone how to identify field garlic (Allium vineale), and warned them about the superficially similar poisonous star-of-Bethlehem, (Ornithogalum umbellatum). Five minutes later, someone was putting the toxic plant into her bag. I stopped her before she eat any of it, but it was too late. She still succumbed: she died of embarrassment!
(H): Top tip you would give beginners to improve their plant and fungi identification skills, build confidence and stay safe?
(W): Try everything on your in-laws first, or attend my foraging tours!
Inspired to transform my raw foraged finds from my tour with Wildman into a fulfilling meal, I set off to work.
As for the main course, I favored the dryad’s saddle mushroom. You can find this edible fungi growing across the northern hemisphere in temperate woodlands, as a parasite on trees, especially elm, beech and sycamore, from April through August.
A pleasurable way to identify dryad’s saddle is by its smell. Pass your nose over it and you’ll register an aroma unexpectedly yet unmistakably reminiscent of watermelon rind.
An oft neglected ingredient, dryad’s saddle can make for a tasty meal if you learn how to coax its flavors to life. As Wildman opined to me: “Dryad's saddle gets the lowest culinary rating because it's not tasty sautéed, while it's incredible marinated before cooking.”
I decided to use my dryad’s saddle as a filling for a sushi roll. To prepare the mushroom, I made a tamari and aged sherry vinegar-based marinade and then used the leftover marinade liquids as more balanced, umami rich substitute for your run-of-the-mill soy sauce.
Here is my dryad’s saddle sushi roll recipe: