Good Shoes and Curiosity

Searching for wild foods connects foragers with nature

Do you want to learn to forage? Learning plant and mushroom identification doesn’t take a biology degree, just a good pair of shoes and some curiosity.

Why Forage?

The most obvious reason for foraging is food, much of which is simply unavailable in the grocery store. Many native plants lack the shelf stability or cultural value to make them marketable and have therefore not yet made their way into the world of agriculture. Foraging for wild foods gives you access to a palate of flavors and textures that will elevate your cooking.

Learning to forage helps hunters identify food sources other than acorns and ag fields. Being able to identify persimmon trees year-round or the leafy browse that deer eat in areas that aren’t next to farmland will get you closer to deer and increase your odds of hunting success. Learning plant identification will also help you recognize high-quality habitat versus low-quality habitat. For any type of hunting, habitat is the number one determining factor of success. If you want to find ducks or turkey or rabbits, you need to know what they eat, where they like to be, and what time of year they use different areas. If you find high-quality prairie, full of blackberries, foxtails, and the like, you’ll find upland birds. If you find shaded pawpaw groves, you’ll find early season whitetails. When you forage, you’ll see more sign, learn more about animal behavior, and explore places you previously wouldn’t have.

Foraging also reorients your value system. Most foragers get excited when seeing new, native plants, and foraging makes one much more aware of landscapes that have been drastically altered by invasive plants. It even gives people a whole new appreciation for the pokes of blackberry and gooseberry thorns and a love for the marshes and the riparian areas where they find morels, oyster mushrooms, and hen of the woods. Foraging connects you to wonder and appreciation and opens your eyes to the value of wild spaces. 

Those are just a few reasons to forage. Where do you get started? 

Start Small

Being a well-rounded forager takes years of adventure and learning, but don’t worry. No one is an expert when they start. For your first foraging hike, check out the Discover Nature section on mdc.mo.gov for a few tips on what is in season. Make a short list of a few plants or fungi you’d like to identify and hit the trail. 

Location is everything when it comes to foraging, and the MDC online Field Guide can be a huge help in pointing you in the right direction. You can read about the habitat conditions certain plants and fungi prefer, their edibility status, even some of the history behind a plant’s usage. Once you’re in the field, let your curiosity lead you. Take pictures of plants you don’t know from multiple angles so you can reference them later. Or take a small sample. For some plants, such as ginseng, you will need to know about harvest regulations, which can be found online at short.mdc.mo.gov/49V. 

Also pay attention to when you are going foraging. You won’t find morels in the summer, no matter how far you look. Every wild food has a season and knowing what’s available based on the time of year is as important as being in the right location. Weather can also play a big role in your foraging success, especially for wild mushrooms. If you’ve had rain, it’s likely that it will boost mushroom growth a few days afterward. Don’t waste a good rainstorm.

The Apps

The MDC Field Guide and Google images are good sources to cross-reference what you find. There is also a wide variety of mushroom and plant identification apps, from Seek to Shroomify. Although helpful, these apps can be wrong and are not a good substitute for learning to accurately identify wild edibles.
     The apps do have value, however, and can often get you in the right ballpark so you can speed up your search. Some of the apps even have a citizen science component that allows you to catalog your observations of native plants so that biologists can map out native plant populations and abundance. Don’t worry, though. You can turn off location services and keep your mushroom spots a secret!

Start Simple 

Fungi can be tricky to ID, so it’s best to start with mushrooms that have few or no toxic look-alikes in our state. Some of the easiest mushrooms to ID are indigo milky (Lactarius indigo), yellow morel (Morchella esculentoides), sulfur-colored chicken of the woods (Laetiporus sulphureus), and hen of the woods (Grifola frondosa).

Morels are best found in spring in sandy river bottoms with an abundance of cottonwood, sycamore, and ash trees. Indigo milky mushrooms are often found close to conifers in the hot, dog days of summer. Sulfur-colored chicken of the woods grows from summer to fall and only grows on dead trees. Hen of the woods grows in the fall around dying oak trees. There are few better ways to enjoy the changing of the seasons like finding this mushroom, which in Japan is referred to as maitake, or “dancing mushroom.”

Some mushrooms you’ll want to beware of are those in the Amanita family — the destroying angel — as some call it, and mushrooms that could be confused with deadly look-alikes. Another to be aware of is the deadly galerina or Galerina marginata (G. autumnalis). This mushroom and many others in the “little brown mushroom” or LBM category can be harmful or even deadly. Always be 100 percent sure of your identification before trying a wild mushroom and always start with a small amount so you can see how your body reacts. Some common edible mushrooms, such as chicken of the woods, cause upset stomachs in some people. There’s no faster way to ruin a foraging experience than a visit to the bathroom.

To be safe, always be certain of your mushroom identification before consuming. For more information, consult A Guide to Missouri’s Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms at short.mdc.mo.gov/ZNf.

In the world of plants, fruits and nuts can be a great place to start. Hickory nuts, black walnuts, and acorns are all easy to identify, and if you’re a hunter, will help you home in on some prime areas of focus. Just know that most acorns, while edible, are very bitter and require “leeching” or successive soakings in hot water to remove the tannins that make them unpalatable for us. 

In the world of berries and fruit, wild blackberries, mulberries, pawpaws, and persimmons are all very easy to identify and are widespread throughout the state. Keep an eye out for mulberries in early summer. You’ll see the ground littered with ripe berries, and a bucket for shorter trees or a good shake is all you need to collect mulberries from taller trees. Blackberries love the heat and humidity of Missouri summers and are easily found along pole lines, alongside trails, and anywhere where the ground has been disturbed. Pawpaws come into ripeness around September, and their custardy, sweet flavor is often described as somewhere between a banana and a mango. Persimmons ripen as the first touches of frost come in the fall, making the end of October a favorite time to collect these. Make sure they are soft to the touch and come easily off the branch before eating them. While ripe persimmons are sweet and have a holiday spice flavor, unripe persimmons have a tannic pucker that you won’t want to taste again. 

A Few Rules

While foraging is highly rewarding, it’s important to remember that wild plants are a limited resource and important for the health of wildlife. When foraging, leave most of a resource for wildlife. If you come on a persimmon tree loaded with fruit, consider only taking 10 to 20 percent of the fruit and leave 80–90 percent for wildlife. This is especially important for staple items that wildlife rely on, such as acorns. 

You can also focus your foraging efforts on invasive plants, such as autumn olive or multiflora rose, both of which offer little nutrition for wildlife and outcompete more desirable native plants. 

Be aware of the laws regarding foraging in the area you plan to visit.  Taking wild edibles at MDC nature centers is prohibited, as is taking wild greens from natural areas. State parks also have limits on the amounts of berries, nuts, and mushrooms that can be collected. If you want more wild edibles than what can be ethically gathered at your local conservation area, MDC sells a variety of wild plants through the George O. White State Forest Nursery in Licking that you can plant on your own property. Creating your own foraged food garden with native Missouri plants is a great way to improve wildlife habitat on your property and add some variety to your pantry. 

Always check the regulations for an area before foraging. It is illegal to sell wild mushrooms found on MDC areas. Wild edibles are best when they’re consumed for your personal use and with friends and family. Also, it is imperative to be 100 percent sure of the identification of any wild plant or mushroom before consuming it. If in doubt, throw it out. ▲

Gilbert Randolph is a writer and an avid outdoorsman. When he’s not creating stories in the digital space, he’s exploring nature and sharing it with people.