Fantastic Forage in the PNW

One of the best things about living in the Pacific Northwest, other than being in the company of beer nerds and self-confessed nerds of all sorts, is the hiking. The forests are lush with trees, ferns, bushes, frogs, wildflowers, and moisture. When we went backpacking last year, we drank water out of bubbling streams (after purifying, of course), and no hike is complete without snacking on various berries: blueberry, cranberry, thimbleberry, blackberry (invasive), huckleberry, even an occasional alpine strawberry. And there are so many hikes within an hour drive or less.

If you've watched those Man vs. Nature shows, you know how they survive on all kinds of foraged and hunted foods,  edible but just barely.  I've slowly become aware of a subculture surrounding foraging for food, it is the ultimate of sustainable, local, and seasonal foods. Sustainable because most people don't know these things are edible or are scared, thank goodness. We first started with berries, which were easy since Tim is from Alaska and has identified all kinds of edible berries, then we moved onto fiddlehead fern. There are actually commercial foragers who make quite a mint at the local farmer's markets and even supply to restaurants.

Then I took a mushroom identification class, and apparently, there are all kinds of edible and delectable mushrooms that grow in the area and some in great abundance: morels, porcini, chanterelle, TRUFFLE, matsutake, and oyster. Free for the taking. You just have to know how to identify them or know someone who can identify them. One of our class instructors harvested a huge basket of morels growing from landscaping bark used at a local park and the other instructor showed slide after slide of her car-trunk full of porcini mushrooms, both of which they cooked for us as part of the class. We learned a little about how to find mushrooms, but mostly about how to eat (and how not to eat) mushrooms. I've also learned a little bit of orienteering to help with not getting lost on the forays.

So anyways, two weekends ago, we went on a hike, not to look for mushrooms, but just to be out during the warm dry Spring weather. Since it's been so warm and dry, finding mushrooms of any kind to identify would be nice, finding edible mushrooms would just blow our minds. And on a well-used trail? Highly unlikely. So we went on a hike called Old Robe Canyon, as recommended by Tim's coworker's wife who works at the Washington Trails Association (Photos taken by Tim's coworker Dan and wife Rebecca):

In addition to the stream and log "bridge", there were also tunnels and old railroad ties since this trail is on a former gold rush mining railroad. Lo and behold, we came upon some dead trees bearing oodles of oyster mushrooms. Here's a picture of Tim harvesting oyster mushrooms:

We got around 4 pounds of oyster mushrooms. I had them positively identified by a coworker (trained mycologist) then we had a mushroom oyster feast at Dan and Rebecca's house:

The smaller oyster mushrooms were sauteed with garlic spears (unopened flower buds of elephant garlic, taste like slightly garlicky asparagus):

The larger mushrooms were brushed with herbed olive oil and broiled to brown the edges:

But foraged food can be found in your own backyard. We were weeding the garden this past weekend and Tim picked the stinging nettle, which are edible after brief parboiling. I made a stinging nettle pesto using this recipe:

Fat of the Land - Stinging Nettle Pesto