Consider for a moment the trending activities and buzzwords in our new socially-distanced normal: Stay outside. Be active. Explore nature. Take up a hobby. Cook something new in the kitchen. And by all means, avoid crowds. Turns out, one of humanity’s most ancient practices can check every one of those boxes — foraging for wild foods. And it’s on the rise.
Even people living in dense U.S. cities are typically surrounded by edible vegetation. Look no farther than New York City, where 66 percent of the city’s 304 woody species provide edible goods, according to a 2017 research paper published in Landscape and Urban Planning. That’s 201 trees, seasonally ripe for the masses. That is, if you were allowed to harvest these edibles.
Experts say wild nuts, berries, mushrooms and herbs grow all across the U.S. and around the world. Many are relatively easy to identify and safe to consume. Collecting them legally, however, can pose the biggest challenge to foragers.
“There’s just been an explosion of foraging presence in social media,” says Marla Emery, co-author of the New York study. Emery, a research geographer with the USDA Forest Service, has published more than 100 papers and studies on foraging since the mid 1990s.
