Summer is here and native plants are poking up everywhere: in yards, parks, and in sidewalk cracks. Most people never wonder, “Can I eat those weeds?”
Now you can.
Each month this summer, foraging expert Dave Odd kicks off two-hour tours from Carnivore in Oak Park. His express intent is to get you to consume the landscape. According to Odd, he is the only full-time professional forager in the Chicago area. He has been at it for more than 20 years.
The first tour of the season started in a weedy parking lot next door to Carnivore and ended in Mills Park. In a radius of two blocks Odd identified more than 50 edible and medicinal plants.
Many people know that dandelions leaves are edible. But did you know that every part, except the fluff is? Before the flowers open the leaves are good as a peppery lettuce. Buds are a decent substitute for capers. Flowers are best lightly battered and fried or made into wine. Roasted roots can be ground into a coffee alternative and if you roast them darker, a chocolate powder substitute.
There is a difference between edible and enjoyable, but it all depends on your reason for eating, said tour guide Odd. Many plants identified on the trip are ones dined on or used medicinally by Native Americans, he said.
One particularly useful plant is plantago, a native that has many health benefits.
“This plant is like magic for bug bites, bee stings, eczema, sunburn,” Odd said. “Take one of the leaves, smash it up, put it directly over the affected area and hold it on there. Put down a piece of tape or a Band-Aid or whatever. It will stop the pain immediately. It is not just a symptom reliever. It is a cure.”
Non-native plants, introduced to beautify the landscape, are edible as well, such as the very common orange tiger lily. All parts of the lily are edible: the flower, the leaves, the roots.
There are several plant families that fall into what Odd called the 90% rule.
“Most anything in the viola and rose families, as well as stone fruit, clovers, mustards, are edible.”
“My favorite wild mustard of the region is called poor man’s pepper,” he added. “This is a very common Chicago area alley weed. Because before you could go to the grocery store and buy pepper, people would use these seeds as a replacement.”
There were 10 curious souls on the tour, including three Japanese entomologists visiting the state to experience the historic cicada emergence. One is even working on a book about edible insects.
Of course, not every plant is safe to eat at every stage of growth. Take pokeweed for instance, it is fine in the early spring.
But, he said, “later on in the summer, it’s going to get real tall, with bright magenta string of pearls berries on it. That’s when it’s poisonous.”
Odd emphasized that most everything can be tested for potential allergies or poison by eating a piece of it about the size of your fingernail, wait a few hours, “If you feel fine, then it’s probably edible.”
At the end of the trek, Carnivore offered a foraged lunch. Chefs served a seasonal appetizer, tempura fried cicadas. Looking at the bowl filled with tater tot-sized nuggets was daunting, but the taste was mostly oil and salt, with a slightly nutty addition that was not unpleasant.
The main course was a spring pasta medley with items Odd had foraged the day before. It included wild onions, asparagus, and nettles. Dessert was a milkshake flavored with rhubarb and mint.
Carnivore’s owner Brad Knaub said he feels there is a connection between what Odd does and his butcher shop.
“He does a cool thing with food that’s hyperlocal. And we do a thing with food that’s hyperlocal too.”
In the pre-carnivore past, both Knaub and co-owner Erik Williams worked for Odd, foraging materials for other local chefs.
“Anytime you were out of work, you would jump into Dave’s 18-passenger church van ride down by Joliet and pick ramps all day long,” Knaub said.
It made ends meet.
“Foraging is something that Eric and I both have done for fun and for profit most of our careers. So, it’s a nice tie-in,” said Knaub.
Odd offers tours throughout the Chicago area, is available for private outings, and also conducts more extensive classes.
If you can’t get enough foraging on a tour, Odd also operates the “Land of Odd,” billed as a nature retreat and survival camp in Beaverville, Illinois, near Kankakee. There you can take longer tours and even camp overnight.
Know before you go:
Sign up for local foraging tours at: oddproduce.com/events
More Odd info at: EatTheNeighborhood.com
Correction, June 20, 12:30 p.m. This article was updated to correct the length of the tour. It is two hours. It also corrected the plant families that the tour guide said are edible. It is rose and viola. It clarified the type of day lily that is edible. It is orange ones.