06 Feb Spring Foraging for Wild Sides to Compliment an Urban Fish Dinner
When serving fillet of fish caught within the confines of a big city, it’s customary to compliment the meal with delicious side dishes that are other foraged foods found near the fishing-hole.
Rainbow trout caught in the Humber River in Toronto is magnificently presented on wild brown rice with blackberry squash, quince, roasted acorns and rose hips – all of which were collected within a quarter mile of the catch.
This is a feast fit for native Canadians that might have enjoyed the same meal four hundred years ago before the arrival of Europeans and their nature suffocating settlements and towns. When this meal is presented on porcelain dishes with silver cutlery alongside a fine wine in a nice restaurant, it’s worth $120 a plate; diners would never imagine that the fish was caught downtown, or that every ingredient before them was foraged entirely for free just fifty to hundred meters away from the urban fishing-hole.
Urban Fishermen Find Fishing Holes using Google Maps and Fishfinders
*I fish for trout behind a grocery store in the shadow of an office tower complex on the wrong side of a chain link fence; there is a deep pool under an oak tree (where I get the acorns for roasting) that has dead branches and good knows what else making a huge debris field I can see using Fishhunter sonar app on my iPhone. Good structure near fast running water makes this deep pool a fantastic place to fish. Adding points for style, I forage food for side dish compliments all around my secret spot, in every season.
Foraging Wild Food is Easy in Autumn Months
It is easy to collect a cornucopia of wild food growing free in any major city in North America in August, September and October; these are the harvest months! There’s plenty of domestic produce ripening in the farmer’s fields, fence rows and in city parks and lanes and forgotten gardens. The autumn bounty includes wild fruit and vegetables like apples, pears, nuts, sweet corn, wild grains and rice. Free food abounds in the fall, but what about in the spring and early summer? What can an urban forager harvest before the harvest?
Spring Foragers Gather Sprouts, Shoots and Blossoms
In the springtime there are plenty of green plants sprouting up that can be chopped away and fried beside fish or added to salads. Above ground there are usually new growth leaves and buds on existing plants and trees that can be collected and eaten; fruit tree blossoms are always edible and make lovely accents to gourmet meals.
Catching catfish in the spring melt? Then how about offering friends this menu item,
Blue Catfish breaded with Cattail Flour and served with Woodland Salad of Plantain, Sorrel, Dandelion leaves and Wild Asparagus, complimented with tender White Pine fronds.
That is a delicious meal that can be collected free in most North American cities.
Or how about eating that mess of Bluegill you caught? Serve as, Pan-fried Bluegill served on Cattail Tuber Scallops on Steamed Nettles.
The fresh young shoots of the Stinging Nettles plant can collected in large quantities in North American cities and is best served when pulverized and reduced to a tasty paste that is excellent when flavoured with butter salt or red wine vinegar on lightly salted cattail tuber cutlets. To scallop Cattail tubers, fresh young cattail shoots are collected. The tender yellow base of the plant which resides between the soil and the surface of the water is used. Remove the outer fibers as much as possible and then chop the yellow white inner tubers into thin circular scallops. This meal is remarkably healthy, and only available in the springtime.
Other Spring Forage to compliment Urban Fish Dinners
Buttered fiddleheads make an unforgettable meal. Most people can remember every single time they’ve ever eaten them, and they are a natural compliment to fish dinners and brook trout in particular. Fiddleheads are easy to find when you know what you’re looking for; they are freshly sprouted ostrich ferns known on the east coast as ‘fiddlehead ferns’ that grow wild in wet areas from Maine to the Dakotas.
Groundnut is another plant that is easily spotted in the springtime. The plant is also called Kippernut, Cipernut, Arnut, Jarnut, Hawknut, Earth Chestnut or simply Groundnut. It is popular with pigs and so farmers call it Pignut.
Wild rhubarb and new mint are classic spring flavors and perfect for seasonal sauces. Tree blossoms are delicious compliments to salads and can be dried for teas. Wild mint and fresh green hemlock fronds make a terrific tea blend and mixed drink with rum or gin. Even folks living in the city can harvest nature in the springtime if they learn to recognize where and when and how things sprout, and where to find new shoots and blossoms for springtime foraging feasts.