Leaf: It's What's For Dinner

I’ve written before about Becoming an Outdoors Woman – the program offered through the New York State DEC that teaches women outdoor skills (see: Fish Tales). As someone who can’t find my way out of a paper bag even when I’m holding a compass that reads “This way out of the paper bag,” I look for any available opportunity to fill the considerable gaps in my knowledge of all things outdoors. So when the program affectionately known as BOW rolled around again, I eagerly jumped in my car and headed off to beautiful Silver Bay on Lake George.

First up on Friday afternoon: a class called Essential Edibles, which promised to teach me about the five essential edibles I’d need to know if I ever became lost in the woods. The five categories are root, stem, bark, flower/berry, and leaf, so you can imagine how my mouth was watering before the class even got started.

This class seemed tailor-made for me because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s being hungry. And since fending off bear can work up quite an appetite, I was anxious to know what I could eat in the woods once my supply of Luna bars ran out. Following a brief introduction, during which we were assured there was enough food outdoors feed us forever, the instructor asked us to go around the room and share with our classmates all the things we already knew we could eat in the wild. Women began rattling off long lists of twiggy and leafy-sounding things that would make only Euell Gibbons drool. When it was my turn, I didn’t have much to share (apparently Hershey Kisses aren’t considered “wild,” even if you find one in the bag that doesn’t have foil on it) so it got pretty quiet in the classroom. Well, there was the sound of crickets chirping (I’m not sure if they’re edible).

Then we went outside to rustle up some grub (Mmmm, grubs – are they edible?). After about 30 minutes of being shown various leaves, grasses, flowers and roots, I came to the realization that “edible” doesn’t necessarily mean things you’d want to eat. It simply means anything that won’t actually kill you. I decided to go out on a limb (get it?) and sample many of these verdant delicacies while I was under the supervision of an expert in the field (get it?).

 What do these things taste like, you ask? Well, you know how when people describe what different meats taste like they always say it tastes like chicken? (rabbit tastes like chicken, frog legs taste like chicken, roadkill tastes like chicken, you get the idea). It’s the same way with green stuff – only instead of tasting like chicken, they all taste like leaves. A maple leaf tastes remarkably like a leaf, plantain tastes like an incredibly bitter leaf. Milkweed – you guessed it – just like a leaf. Ditto for a yellow birch leaf. Some people claimed they had a wintergreen taste, but I swear they were eating TicTacs. Since I hadn’t keeled over yet, all these leaves, while not exactly tasty, did fit the class’s definition of “edible.”

By now I’d worked up a real craving for something that was not green. Since this was a class called Essential Edibles, I knew we’d eventually come around to talking about the most essential edible of all and began searching for a chocolate tree. I didn’t find a tree with chocolate but I did find a lovely pile of Raisinets on the ground.  Someone stopped me before I could see if they were edible, saying they’d been left there by a deer. (I wonder if he knows he has a hole in his backpack?)

Although I learned a lot in this class (I have a new-found respect for weeds) the most important thing I learned is that if you’re planning on hiking into the woods remember to bring along plenty of actual food and be sure to stay within walking distance of a grocery store. When the class ended, it was time to head to the dining hall. I didn’t care what was for dinner, as long as it tasted like chicken.

Don't think of this as a gardening eyesore, think of it as a salad bar.

That's me, on the far right, wondering if I'm standing on my dinner.