#foragingaustralia — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #foragingaustralia, aggregated by home.social.
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Nice collection of agaricus mushrooms on today's urban walk. Possibly A. macrosporus, although it didn't have much of an aniseed smell, so could be A. augustus or another species.
Almost certainly not A. xanthodermus (the yellow stainer) which has a very distinct and unpleasant smell when the base of the mushroom is crushed.
Mushroom basket by yours truly.
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It's mushroom season in the southern hemisphere, and I'm rediscovering just how much *worse* foraging resources are compared to even a few years ago.
There's a terrifying number of LLM-written mushrooming books and guides out there, and they just straight make stuff up.
Fungi are a particular risk to foragers, because humans straight up don't have the ability to taste some of the most deadly toxins. The fungi that cause the most poisonings are the ones that taste good.
As always, do not eat any fungi unless you are absolutely sure what it is, and just as importantly absolutely sure what it is not. Learning to identify dangerous species is even more important than being able to identify edible ones. There are just too many look-alikes.
Stay safe. Be extra cautious of books and guides written in this decade. Happy mushrooming!
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Hey #Narrm #Melbourne folks. It's autumn, and a lot of yucca is starting to bloom.
What you might not know is that the flowers are edible, and honestly pretty good. You can eat them raw, but they are *much* better cooked.
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I might be a bit too tired to do a full write-up, but there's a tonne of basket grass (Lomandra longifolia) in seed right now.
I collected a number of seedpods, threshed and winnowed them, soaked and boiled the seeds, and added them to porridge. They were very inoffensive, and could be eaten on their own, but needed lots of boiling to soften.
Apparently they can also be milled and made into bush bread, but I don't have good milling tools, so porridge it was.
This is a plant you see everywhere in urban Australia, as it's a very hardy and low-maintenance native. It's also widespread in the bush.
Extra information in the alt text.
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I'm rewatching Bush Tucker Man for the first time since I saw it as a kid in 1988.
I was prepared for it to be very problematic, but it's actually been not too bad. Les Hiddens seems to have some genuinely close friendships with many of the elders he meets, speaks some of the local languages, and makes a point of acknowledging whose land he's on.
Upon rewatching it's also clear that it had an enormous impact on my interest in #foraging later in life.
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A tiny bit of flour and into the pan, and the result is actually edible!
It's nutty with fresh notes of sand, and the slightest hint of figs. It definitely feels like something you'd only eat when there's not much else available, but it's much better than I was expecting. Even Mr 8 had a piece and came back for seconds.
So Moreton Bay fig seed meal as a component in bush bread is definitely a possibility, albeit a high effort and gritty one!
FIN/🧵
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Yeah, this has way too much water in it, and it's just dissolving in the oil.
The result tastes good, though! I wasn't expecting that. It's nutty and crunchy.
So not good as the sole ingredient in a bush bread, but certainly has it's place in a mix.
Next step is to add a little flour as a binder, to see what that's like.
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And after some hand milling it looks even less palatable now. I think I'm going to discover why nobody does this.
As usual for anything involving seeds, I have a bird supervising me.
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Back at home, and I discovered that since I foolishly put some of my "dry" Moreton Bay fig pulp in sealed containers, it has since gone mouldy. However there's still a little bit left that's good.
I've broken the clumps up with my kitchen rock, pushed the result through a sieve, and winnowed the result. Winnowing was a little tricky, because the pulp dust isn't much lighter than the seeds.
The end result is this! A bowl of spoiled pulp, a bowl of somewhat separated seeds, and a bowl of coarse bits that didn't make it through the sieve. The winnowed pulp is gone on the wind.
Now to grind the mostly-seed mixture and see if I can make it into a paste and cook it.
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I've collected a small basket of dried Moreton Bay fig seed/pulp masses. This didn't take very long at all, even with me being very selective to only grab the driest and cleanest ones.
I'm travelling at the moment, so I won't know if I'll have a chance to process these until I get back, but I imagine I'll want to lightly work them to loosen the seeds from the pulp, and then either winnow or float the mass to see if I can separate out the seeds.
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I was wondering how one would remove the pulp to dry and separate the seeds, but walking under one of the trees reveals that no work is necessary. Moreton Bay figs are a food source for many birds and other animals, and they just leave the seeds after eating the pulp. All one really needs to do is pick them up.
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Hello #foragingAustralia friends! I've long enjoyed eating Moreton Bay figs, but of course they have *so many seeds*. The seeds aren't disagreeable in taste, but they are dry and tough compared to domestic figs.
Has anyone any good experiences or references in grinding them and making a figgy bush bread?
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Here's all the dried, retted #yucca bundled up on the left. On the right is the finished product from my last batch. Beautiful, strong, cream coloured fibres.
To get there now just requires a lot of manual working of the bundle, followed by lots of and lots brushing.
This isn't particularly hard, but it is time consuming, so it's best done with company, and definitely done outside (it produces lots of chaff).
If you've got a crafts fair, ren faire, or other outdoors event in #Narrm #Melbourne that's broadly aligned with my values and would benefit from a fibre processing demonstration, hit me up.
Otherwise I'll likely be cleaning and dressing these fibres the next time I'm camping or at a picnic with friends. ❤️
#fibre #fibreArt #NeolithicTech #solarpunk #foragingAustralia #urbanForaging
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The weather is getting nice, and my family has started to complain about the smell, which means it's time to take my retting yucca leaves and hang them up on the line.
I'm trying a less-effort run with these. I've scraped a few bundles to remove the retted matter, but the rest I've hung as-is. I'm cautiously optimistic that they'll just brush out when they're dry.
You can see what the process looks like in full in this thread: https://cloudisland.nz/@pjf/113625891996716616
#fibre #FibreArts #NeolithicTech #retting #foraging #ForagingAustralia #UrbanForaging
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One of the nice things about knowing how to #forage is that sometimes one's garden just gifts you exquisite bounties.
I had to clear the way to my work stump, which involved harvesting this absolutely perfect bunch of mustard greens that had self-seeded.
These are edible (but piquant) raw, but are much better steamed or stir-fried, much like you'd use other brassicas like broccoli or cabbage.
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Ate my first tī kōuka¹ leaf heart today. Very much like eating a delicious artichoke that's been rubbed down with a Nintendo Switch cartridge². Very enjoyable and woke me up at the same time. Would 100% turn my neighbour's garden waste into food again.
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¹ Cordyline australis, aka cabbage tree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyline_australis² To prevent accidental ingestion by small children, the game cards are coated with a bittering agent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium
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The other thing I've come across this walk are palm fruit! Date palms are the best known for their fruit, but many palms have palatable ones.
These ones were surprisingly decent! Good smell, very juicy, sweet, but also a bit fibrous and quite tart. Very much like some varieties of plums, including being better with the skin removed. They'd probably make a good jam.
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Needless to say, I've been selecting grabbing the dark acorns for soaking and eating.
I've grabbed a few light ones that looked like they were in excellent condition, but I'll process those differently.
I've heard of people doing acorn tanning, and I wonder if they moldstruck acorns would be better for this? It would make sense for them to make more tannins in response to disease, which is why they're even more bitter than usual acorns.
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I wasn't expecting to do a big haul of acorns this season, but I don't think I can really walk past this.
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It's a beautiful autumn day in #Naarm #Melbourne, and here is a gorgeous chunk of acacia gum from my travels.
Acacia gum is water soluble, edible¹, and is my go-to adhesive for a lot of projects. It's been used throughout Australia for thousands of years.
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¹ Be careful chewing acacia gum. The adhesive properties can be *very* strong, resulting in your family laughing at you for minutes because your jaw is glued shut again. Don't panic, it dissolves eventually.
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Without prompting from me, Mr 8 has been foraging really nice acorns and bringing them home to me, so I can make acorn porridge.
We peel them, slice them, and then soak them for days over many changes of water until they're sweet enough to cook and eat.
I made acorn porridge a year or two ago, and while I thought he was indifferent to it, it's clear that it left a positive impression. I'm really glad.
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Today while walking I spotted an absolutely huge goosefoot bush (aka fat-hen). This is one of my favourite wild greens¹. It's closely related to quinoa and is even grown as a commercial vegetable in many parts of the world².
#foraging #foragingAustralia #UrbanForaging
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¹ It's especially good cooked with eggs. If you can find eggs.
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With the changing of the seasons it's time for me to cede the nettle patch.
Not a bad harvest at all this year. These will become fibre (from the stems), food (from the leaves) and more food (from the seeds).
My good bird friends are helping me find all the seeds I missed. ❤️
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CW: Wild plants as food
Grabbed a cattail/bulrush rhizome while out the other day, because apparently my friends are just cool with me diverting our walk so I can be up to my elbows in sticky, stinky mud.
After some cleaning and drying, it peeled nicely, and with a little oil and salt made some excellent (albeit very chewy) chips (aka fries).
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Mushroom foraging today was a success! Lots of saffron milkcaps, which are honestly my most favourite mushroom ever.
I was so worried the season was going to end without me finding any.
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Today's #foraging find were these fabulous agaricus #mushrooms. You can see yellow staining where they're cut or bruised, but they don't have the distinctive smell of agaricus xanthodermus, the tummy-troubling "yellow-stainer" mushroom.
I need to do a couple more tests, but the yellow staining and the "cogwheel" veil suggests agaricus arvensis, the delicious "horse mushroom". 😋
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NB: Don't eat wild mushrooms because you saw them on the internet. Some will kill you.
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These shaggy parasol mushrooms from the local park were excellent with butter and garlic. #foraging #foragingAustralia
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Disclaimer: Please don't eat wild mushrooms unless you're absolutely sure what they are and what they aren't. If these were destroying angels—which are also white with white gills—then my basket would have been enough to kill me multiple times over. Even these shaggy parasols cause a reaction in some people, even when cooked with garlic and butter.
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Today's foraging find was three specimens of agaricus brunneofibrillosus aka "bleeding agaricus". The flesh turns a distinctive red when first cut.
I've only ever read about these, so it's exciting to find them in the wild.
These I'll fry up with a bit of butter and salt. I've not tried them before and want to experience them without adulterants.
A reminder as always not to eat wild mushrooms unless you know what you're doing. The bad ones *will* kill you.
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New resin just dropped!!
I had no idea the Queensland Bottle Tree produced resin, so this was a very exciting discovering on my walk today.
I've yet to experiment with it, but apparently it's edible (or at least non-toxic), and the few pieces I tried had an extremely mild taste. I reckon mixed with something sweet it would make a good candy.
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Ate some tender birch shoots for the first time today. They were much better than I expected, and would probably be very decent cooked.