Edible Plants of California's Edgelands: A giant ficus on the Margin

© 2010 Joshua Stark

Summer in Central California brings some amazing things.  Of course, we get the heat - a typical Summer here gives us 22 days over 100 degrees, which means that half of our years have more than 22 days over 100.  But, we also get fruit, vegetables, berries, and flowers.  For foraging the wild marginal lands, Summer offers up serious bounties of very valuable products - fennel seeds and pollen, and various berries ripened by the heat and fed by generous river systems.  This weather also makes for a great place for common figs to grow.

That brighter green thicket holds an overflowing bounty

The common fig (Ficus caricar) has a long and distinguished past with people.  Among the first plants cultivated by humans, figs have been found in neolithic sites dating back to 9,000 BC, even before evidence of wheat cultivation.  Today, hundreds of varieties are grown throughout the warmer parts of the world.

In California, the most commonly met wild fig is a variety called 'mission' or 'black mission'.  It is medium-sized, as figs go, and when ripe (Summertime!), turns a beautiful, dark purple and droops down.  It's name comes from its origin to the state, as Spanish missions brought the fruit as early as the late 1700's.

 The black mission fig in all its glory

Figs are that type of food everything gorges on while it's ripe.  Birds, woodland critters, and people all take part in great fig feasts, because very soon, we know they will be withered and gone for a whole year.

Figs are also the type of food that really changes dramatically with preparation.  When eaten raw, they are sweet, but not overpoweringly so.  When preserved, their sweetness is still there, but there is a stronger presence of other flavors, and an almost smoky quality.

Because they are so loved by creatures great and small, and because they've been cultivated for thousands of years, figs are prolific, and picking can be easy.  However, this means that the tree you are eyeballing along the trail has been eyeballed by more than a couple of people, and other species, to boot.  And the tree has one problem associated with picking:  It's sap can be a terrible irritant, causing sticking, itching, and burning, and on some people, it can even scar.  If you are heading out to pick, please wear long-sleeved shirts, pants, and if you are particularly sensitive, even gloves. 

If you can just reach a little further...

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Technical-ish description:

Common fig, Ficus caricar
Large, deciduous shrub or small tree of riparian habitats, growing to 30 feet high, almost always in thickets of multiple plants.
Leaves are large, palmate, and deeply lobed with 3-7 lobes.  Fruit is a synconium.

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Recipes:

Preserved figs
Half as much sugar as figs
One lemon per 60 figs or so, sliced thin
60 figs will make about four pint jars

Pour just enough water to cover the bottom of your pan (really, just a little water), and dump in figs, whole.  Cover with sugar.
Set fire on med-med. high, stirring frequently, until it starts to boil.  Lower heat some, and simmer, uncovered, 1.5-2 hours, until liquid starts to thicken, stirring occasionally to keep the foam down (it's harder to skim the foam with whole figs in the pot).  If the pot is seriously foaming, turn down the heat a bit. 

Pour into prepared jars, making sure to get a couple of lemon slices in each jar, and process in boiling water bath (I believe the standard is fifteen minutes, but you'll need to double-check that with a canning expert).

If you can the figs while the liquid is still pretty thin, pour the liquid over the figs, and strain the remaining liquid through a sieve to get rid of the seeds.  You now have a small amount of fig syrup, with which you can make this:

Ginger, candied in fig & port wine

One finger of ginger, about one/1.5 in. long
3/4 to 1 Cup each of fig syrup and port wine

Simmer fig syrup on medium heat until it just starts to bubble around the edges, then quickly pour in the port wine.  Simmer down a bit, then toss in ginger, sliced wide and thin.  Simmer down by at least half.  Serve sauce over meats (it goes perfectly with salmon), topped with the ginger.  

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Resources:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/fig.html#Toxicity
http://www.grist.org/article/food-fig-cake-and-old-fashioned-preserves/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_fig

Living off the margins - edible plants of marginal lands

© 2010 Joshua Stark

I'm currently working on an additional page for this blog, titled, "Edible Plants of California's Edgelands".  Ideally, I'd like to provide a little primer on the most common plants, where/when to find them, a couple of recipes, and whatnot.

Are any of you interested?  Also, what might you like to know?

So far, here's my list:  Mallow, filaree, nettles, elders, dandelions, artichokes, fennel, berries, figs.

Marginal hunting seasons

© 2010 Joshua Stark

Another quick note.  Here in California, many are surprised at how early we start hunting deer.  Our archery seasons for much of the coast began in July, and our other regions' seasons are about to get started.

However, I thought I'd point out that more than just deer are available for folks with sticks and strings in our Golden State.  The archery season for tree squirrels began August 1st, and archery quail season starts this Sunday, August 15th!  Of course, rabbits have been open for hunting since July 1, and hares are open year-round.

Yes, these are marginal hunting opportunities, and many would scoff at the idea of trying to arrow any bird short of a turkey (which, by the way, is as easy to hunt with a bow as with a shotgun).  But, there are a number of fun and interesting hunting arrowheads specifically for prey such as quail.  The most common option is the Judo Point, a great head by Zwickey Archery, but they make a better bird point with the Kondor Point - a Judo Point with longer wires.

One can also hunt with Snaro points, which consist of metal cables looped forward, sticking out a few inches on either side.  These heads catch birds.

The good features of these heads include less arrow loss from slipping away, and a wider striking area, allowing for more room for error.  With these animals, you are aiming for something about the same size as the vitals on bigger game, and with the extra help from these fun points, your odds get even better - so try not to be so intimidated.  Also remember that you are out to fling arrows, see some beautiful country, and quietly scout for rifle and shotgun seasons, but if you EVER come home with a successful hunt, you will be the envy of your friends, and prouder'n a peacock, to boot! 

This year, I hope to get out once with my recurve and some small game points after birds and squirrels and rabbits.  Maybe I'll see you out there.

Working... buffering... stalling...

There is a lot going on now, and I'm on pause here for the moment.  While I do that, please enjoy this piece on archery over at the Suburban Bushwacker.

Non-food foraging

© 2010 Joshua Stark

...and I don't mean dumpster-diving, or continuing to click on the craigslist "free" category (I've already blogged about that one).  I'm talking about foraging for things that don't make food, but provide other benefits.

Here in the California Delta, we are cursed with Arundo donax, giant river reed.  This plant is highly invasive, and provides no habitat for our native fauna.  It also poisons the ground around it, making for a negative habitat space, in effect.  However, the gigantic reeds make for fine lattices and trellises.  In my tiny town along the river, I grew up next door to master filipino gardeners, who made amazing-looking trellises in the form of five to six-foot tall lean-tos: the cucumbers and beans would hang straight down off of the roofs, where one could easily walk underneath and pick them at eye level.

We also have wild roses, whose shoots can make beautiful and sturdy arrows, and willows, with which one may make a chair, or a concoction for getting clippings to take root.  And the abundant local tules and rushes had been used for centuries by native Californians for everything from houses to boats to duck decoys.  Soon, I hope to gather some up and try my hand at making decoys, just to see if all the hype in the duck-hunting industry has been overblown. 

The occasional walnut tree makes its presence, too, including one 65-foot monster in our back yard.  Now, as the squirrels rain down our beautiful walnuts too early to eat, I hope to gather them up and boil down a concoction into walnut stain to make just about anything dark brown - wood, but also pants, hands, our porch.  The stuff "works", that's for sure. 

Have you ever foraged for things other than food?  Often, our little out-of-the-way spots hold treasures that can save you some money, or contribute free loot to a new hobby.

Continuing ideas

© 2010 Joshua Stark

A couple weeks back, I asked if folks had any ideas for my new venture, and I received a couple (thanks, fellas!).  I'm working on more specific thoughts now, and I've found a gentleman who is going to help me work out the kinks and ideas as a person new to the scene, a potential client.  I wrote about where I found him at Ethics & the Environment.  After speaking with him, I got some good ideas I'd like to share here.
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Here's my plan so far:  A six-week series of four-hour meetings once/week, to cover the basics of foraging in the regional wild lands, fishing (with basic paddling instructions), hunting (with firearms and archery safety and the chance to shoot), food prep and storage, and some visits to local farms and gardens to get tips and ideas on small-scale farming at home (including animals, of course).  The classes will come with some basic information in a three-ring binder, with pages on some local plants and animals, seasonality, links to better information, etc.  I also hope to provide classes on basic birdwatching, botany, field sketching, photography, things to do in the field with kids, first aid, etc.

I'm not saying I can do all of these things (I can do a few), but where I can't (like photography), I'd like to schedule folks to come in who can (like Holly or my amazing friend David Lamfrom).

What do y'all think?  How much should I charge for something like this?  I'm thinking that with a six-week series, folks can sign up for individual classes, or sign up for the whole series at a discount.

Let me know if I'm even barking up the right tree here.

There is no Spoon - when 'Spoon' is 'Urban' - and sometimes that is very sad

© 2010 Joshua Stark

Yesterday, on my way home for lunch, a body on the side of the road made my blood run cold.  I hit the brakes and pulled off to the side, jumped out of the car, and walked over to it - my worst suspicions came to pass.

It was a dead badger.

Now, this might not sound like a big deal to many of you, especially those living in the Great Basin region.  But here, in California's Central Valley, badgers are very uncommon.  Also, American badgers are not the kind of animal that thrives on the edge-lands.  Badgers are Big Country animals.  So it came as a complete shock to me to find a dead one on a main thoroughfare in a city of over 40,000 (and part of a metropolitan area of over 1 million), across a bridge with heavy traffic.

To really understand my surprise, consider this:  I have never, in my entire life, seen a badger here.  By "here" I mean my homeland, I mean in my thirty-five years of stomping around the Delta.  Never.  Not once.

I still don't know what to make of finding this critter.  On the ground, I am heartbroken.  Here is a symbol of the wild wild, a real beast that would and should be snorting and hissing, clawing through the ground, being tough and scary, standing up to creatures many times its size with a legendary strength of will and muscle.  As a child, my cousin, friends and I used to play "animal", and inevitably one of us would call out that they were now a badger, and crawl around low, fighting everybody else.  But here lay this one, its huge claws uselessly tucked under its chin, it's beautiful fur matted by blood, its fierce green fire long gone from its eyes.

Of course, in the grander scheme of things, I see this beautiful creature's presence as yet another truth against the way we've tried to organize, separate, and catalog our lives.  As I've written at my Ethics & the Environment blog, there are no real distinctions between urban, rural, and wild, and a badger in the city is one more example, though it comes at great cost.

Where I am confused is in what this means for the area.  Are badgers back, and their numbers so large that now one shows up in town?  I'd like to think this is true.  Are they getting so much pressure that they are actually moving into marginal lands?  Maybe I just don't know badgers very well, and they are successful enough to survive on the margins while never being seen?  Perhaps, even, this one was somebody's pet - though I seriously doubt that one.

So I'm left befuddled, but with a real reason to poke around even deeper into my local marginal lands, looking for badger sign.  Hopefully, I'll find some, but with enough distance to not get torn to ribbons.  I'll keep you posted.