Food from the trail?

[azchipka]

Just looking for the thoughts from people on this. Fiddle heads, fish, nuts and berries and items of this nature that can make for greet fresh dinners on the trail. Does any one do this on the AT. Is it overly frowned upon. If you where sitting at a shelter and saw someone cooking up fresh fish, fiddle heads and mushrooms. Would your reponse be one of being upset or one of enjoyment when they offered you a real natural meal?

This will be my first year on the AT and where i normally spend my summers this is perfectly ok as long as its done in moderation, and just figured i would check.

[Peaks]

If you believe in Leave No Trace, then you don't pick plants, etc.

However, who can resist berries when in season. Likewise, those that fish frequently eat them.

In addition to fiddleheads, there are dandilion greens, and ramps.

[Jody7818]

What is a fiddle head?

[chris]

I have no problems harvesting some food and do not think that it violates a LNT ethic. However, note that all plant collecting is now banned in the Smokys, and this includes ramps. However, well, they are tasty. Chicken of the Woods is a very common fungus that I like to pluck when I find it. Has anyone found Sorrel on trail? I don't recall seeing any south of Damascus.

[Peaks]

What is a fiddle head?

The top of a fern early in the spring before it grows out.

[Blue Jay]

I read in a herbalist book that to be responsible you should only take 30% of any one organism in any one place. That way it will quickly grow back and LNT.

[Jaybird]

Just looking for the thoughts from people on this. Fiddle heads, fish, nuts and berries and items of this nature that can make for greet fresh dinners on the trail. Does any one do this on the AT. Is it overly frowned upon............

Digital Ranger:

i adhere to LNT principles........so i dont pick mushrooms, fiddleheads, or other plants, etc..... but, if YOU DO,....make sure you do your homework on the particular plants in the eastern part of the country.


i'll stick to the pre-pkg foods....& of course my daily SNICKERS bar


see you UP the trail

[Moon Monster]

One a single day on the way up Chestnut Knob in SW VA, a companion and I came upon a mother-lode of morel mushrooms and later a mother-lode of ramps. We cooked them up in some olive oil with sea salt that knight during a sleet storm in the cabin on the summit of th eKnob. Delish!!

We filled a gallon ziploc with morels in about 15 minutes. When you have fortune to find that many morels in one place, it is tempting to throw all LNT ethics away, if those ethics were to caution against gathering local plants in the first place. (I don't want to comment on this).

[Chef2000]

IN Virginia, I think its in the Front Royal area, the trail goes right thru a bunch of Blackberry trees. MMM good. Great addition to oatmeal or panckes. In PA before Palmerton there is at least a mile of blueberrys.

[Kozmic Zian]

Just looking for the thoughts from people on this. Fiddle heads, fish, nuts and berries and items of this nature that can make for greet fresh dinners on the trail. Does any one do this on the AT. Is it overly frowned upon. If you where sitting at a shelter and saw someone cooking up fresh fish, fiddle heads and mushrooms. Would your reponse be one of being upset or one of enjoyment when they offered you a real natural meal?

This will be my first year on the AT and where i normally spend my summers this is perfectly ok as long as its done in moderation, and just figured i would check.

Yea....Real Trail Food. I pick a few schrooms myself, eat a few fresh greens, even eat a flower or two....definitely pick the berries. The greens and schrooms steam really well over some rice. Sometimes I pan fry the schrooms. Ya gotta know which ones to get tho'. I do. In my '96 Thruy, I carried a 20' piece of mono rolled up in a zippy with a little bug on it, caught quite a few freshies along the way. As you can tell, I see nothing wrong with this....all done within a reasonable fashion. Don't purse seign tons of fish, pick all the berries and schrooms or eat all the veggies....leave more than you take.....Then its not so bad....I know some won't see it that way, but its choices. KZ@

[kncats]

I read in a herbalist book that to be responsible you should only take 30% of any one organism in any one place. That way it will quickly grow back and LNT.

The 30% limit is a good pratice if you are actually in a wilderness area and no one else is in the area. However, if you pick 30% of a stand of mushrooms today, and then I pick 30% of what's left tomorrow and the person following me takes 30% of what is left the day after...

[squirrel bait]

Then you all would be eating good......mushrooms (morels) pop up to their full size in one night, I can't imagine picking them depletes the stock in any way. I was always told and still practice leaving the foot/root in the ground. Kinda of the way your leave asparagus in the ground when you pick it.

[weary]

The top of a fern early in the spring before it grows out.

Actually, only the fiddlehead of the ostrich fern is palatable. Other varieties are eaten, but they tend to be very bitter and some think mildly poisonous.

Ostrich ferns come relatively late -- early to mid May, depending somewhat on the season. They mostly grow in the flood zone of streams. They are collected commercially and increasingly can be found in stores in Maine anyway.

Weary

[weary]

Just looking for the thoughts from people on this. Fiddle heads, fish, nuts and berries and items of this nature that can make for greet fresh dinners on the trail. Does any one do this on the AT. Is it overly frowned upon. If you where sitting at a shelter and saw someone cooking up fresh fish, fiddle heads and mushrooms. Would your reponse be one of being upset or one of enjoyment when they offered you a real natural meal?
.

Logan in 1993 tried to find a different wild food each day. But it was more of a hobby for him than a significant food source. Aside from an occasional ramp and berries, most of us have a hard enough time getting from Georgia to Katahdin to do significant foraging.

But I never passed up raspberries, blackberries or, especially, blue berries. If you time your trip properly (August through the first killing frost) most years you can pick a quart of blueberries in 10 minutes on the ledges off the summits of Bald Mountain and Moxie Bald.

Blueberries require pruning for good production. Above about 2500 feet in Maine I suspect repeated freezings and winter storms provide the pruning that commercial growers do by burning, though some now use machines. At least the heaviest production I've seen occurs on the high open ridges.

Weary

[Connie]

What is ramp ?

[SGT Rock]

A ramp is a wild leak that looks somewhat similar to a spring onion and is nice and spicy. They grow in the southern Appalachians, and maybe the central and north.

[Connie]

Thanks Rock !