Live off the land -- in the city

By Donna Freedman

Feeling squeezed at the supermarket? Maybe you should be looking for food in the parking lot, or in your neighbor's yard.

We're talking dandelions, feral mushrooms, gleaned fruit, local fish or even those wascally wabbits that overrun city greenbelts. Ingenuity plus a little sweat equity can put fresh, healthful food on the table and possibly provide other benefits as well: exercise, relaxation and a different way of looking at your neighborhood.

For example:

• Chauncey Niziol fishes for bass and bluegills in downtown Chicago.

• Steven Rinella traps squirrels and catches pigeons in Brooklyn, N.Y.

• Jeff Yeager harvests shoots from bamboo that grows in his suburban Washington, D.C., yard.

• Katy Kolker harvests tree fruit that otherwise would have rotted in Portland, Ore.

• "Radical ecologist" Nance Klehm plucks salads out of city sidewalks and leads urban foraging walks around her home city of Chicago. A few clients are survivalists, she says, or foodies who are looking for "unusual tastes." But most are simply "curious about the world around them." Foraging is "about a connection and an interaction with an environment," she says.

Chowing down on chickweed

According to her Spontaneous Vegetation Web site, Klehm grows or forages nearly everything she eats. The wild greens she harvests are what most people would think of as weeds: wood sorrel, mallow, chickweed, wild mustard and the like. Some can be eaten only at certain times of the year; dandelions, for example, are best when very young.

Klehm recommends using wild plants in moderation at first, because their flavors can be strong. Besides, "if you don't have a very flexible or curious palate, you might not find them tasty" in large quantities.

• Urban farms: US cities get their green on

What's most important, however, is knowing what you're eating. The difference between the right plant and a look-alike is the difference between a nice salad and a trip to an emergency room. Where you find your food is important, too, because you could be sickened by food from polluted soils or waterways.

Klehm recommends buying a reputable field guide to local flora. It's also smart to seek out community-college classes or local plant walks; if neither exists, get a group of like-minded folks together and pay a local botanist to educate you on what and where to pick. Keep that field guide handy whenever you go out on your own, though.

Mushrooms, bamboo and ferns, oh my

Books by the late naturalist Euell Gibbons introduced Yeager, aka "The Ultimate Cheapskate," to wild edibles. Yeager, who grew up in Ohio and now lives about 20 miles south of Washington, doesn't harvest as many wild things as he once did. But he still keeps his eyes peeled when walking or bicycling.

For example, why pay for chicory when you can find it growing volunteer? "The wild stuff is much more potent," says Yeager, whose mom and dad were pleased when he brought home this coffee enhancer. They were also fond of the wild onions that he dug up and pickled: "My parents liked those in their martinis." (Yeager preferred the onions in a cream soup.)

Sometimes a "wild" plant is a cultivated variety that jumped a fence or was spread by birds or carelessly dumped garbage. Yeager has found asparagus, zucchini, black raspberries and even watermelons growing in fields and along roads. His own yard is "packed with bamboo" -- an increasingly common landscape plant -- so he cooks the young shoots in the spring.

While Chicago native Niziol focuses mostly on fishing and hunting in his weekly ESPN radio program, he's not strictly carnivorous. Niziol swears by a good plate of fiddlehead ferns, fresh wild carrots (aka Queen Anne's lace) or a mug of sassafras tea ("it tastes like root beer").

And mushrooms? Don't get him started. "I use them every which way I can. I put them in stews, I dry them, I make a killer mushroom soup," says Niziol, a former outdoors columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

Mushrooms must be picked with care, he notes, because some fungi are poisonous. A good field guide is essential. What's even better is to find a local mycological society and start taking walks with experts.

Continued: Catfish anyone?

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