The Tricky Business of Eating Found Foods
Nasturtiums are lovely, easy to grow and delicious on a salad — but don’t eat them unless you’re certain they are nasturtiums and not a toxic twin. Photo courtesy University of Connecticut​

The Tricky Business of Eating Found Foods

In spring 2020, as COVID-19 was sending city folks up here full-time to live in the country, The Lakeville Journal published its annual short article talking about the delights of finding, cooking and eating the wild leeks that are also known as “ramps.” 

This did not end well. Several people unfamiliar with the dangers of eating found foods without a guide ended up with severe gastric distress that took them to the emergency room at Sharon Hospital. Our goal at this newspaper company is not ever to poison our readers. However, spring is here again and the ramps are beginning to mature on the sides of roads and under bushes in swampy parts of our region. 

We would like to strongly encourage anyone who is interested in going out to forage for found foods in the woods, which is super fun, to please find a competent guide to take you, someone who has found and cooked and eaten wild ramps many times and has never ended up in the emergency room because of it.

The same caution applies to another unconventional food that the University of Connecticut sent an email about this week. Kaelin Smith from the university’s Home & Garden Education Center writes in this week’s nature column that gardeners might want to think about edible flowers as they prepare to plant their gardens.

Three flowers Smith recommends as beautiful and as edible are calendula, nasturtiums and squash blossoms. I’ve never tasted calendula but I can vouch for the delicious delight of eating nasturtiums and squash blossoms (usually from zucchini). These plants are also fairly easy to grow in a decent-sized garden plot. 

And an advantage you have here is that, if you buy and plant a nasturtium plant, you can feel pretty confident that you are actually eating nasturtium blossoms.

Enjoy some edible flowers this summer; but make sure you know what they are. 

Latest News

Haystack Festival brings literary minds to Norfolk

The Great Room at Norfolk Library filled to capacity for the Haystack Festival.

Jennifer Almquist

Just after noon on Sunday, Oct. 6, attendees of Norfolk Foundation’s Haystack Festival spilled out of the red Shingle Style Norfolk Library into brilliant October sunshine, emerging from the final book talk of the weekend (excepting an event for young readers later in the day). The talk, which was a conversation between horse experts journalist Sarah Maslin Nir and author David Chaffetz, was rife with equine puns and startling facts. The tongue-in-cheek use of the word “cavalier” brought laughs from the engaged audience, while Nir disclosed that horses eat for a full 16 hours a day.

The talk brought levity and humor to the festival’s conclusion, while also diving into the serious history of the relationship between society and horses. Chaffetz explained horses were fundamental in the formation of large empires: “We don’t see empires until horses became fundamental to the political state.” Nir elaborated that the “wild” horses in North America are not native, but feral horses descended from animals brought by Spanish imperialists. “No tea grows in England,” she explained, “it is the result of empire – and so are horses.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Project SAGE's solemn vigil

"The Red Sand Project" is intended to draw attention to often overlooked domestic violence issues in the Northwest Corner.

Natalia Zukerman

To mark the start of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Project SAGE held its annual community vigil on Tuesday, Oct. 1, at Community Field in Lakeville. Project SAGE is a community-focused organization dedicated to supporting, advocating, guiding and educating victims of relationship violence through a range of services and outreach programs.

A large group of people gathered quietly in the center of the field where they were handed packets of red sand. Red Sand Project, created by artist and activist Molly Gochman, is a participatory artwork that uses sidewalk interventions and earthwork installations to encourage people to reflect, connect, and take action against the vulnerabilities that contribute to human trafficking, modern slavery, and exploitation.

Keep ReadingShow less
Northwest Corner artists unite for Clay Way Tour Oct. 19-20

Pottery of all sorts will be on display at the Clay Way Tour, featuring 26 area artists.

Provided

Now in its 8th year, The Clay Way Studio Tour is an annually held event featuring some of Connecticut’s best potters. Twenty six artists will show their work among nine studios.

The Tour takes place in Litchfield County Connecticut and Wingdale, New York Oct.19 and 20 from 10 a.m to 5 p.m. Potter and organizer Jane Herald explained the origin of the tour.

Keep ReadingShow less