Harvesting local wild produce in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park may not seem like the best idea. And yet, on a lively foraging tour of the park last month, a straw hat-wearing gatherer named “Wildman” Steve Brill and his teenage daughter Violet guided about 40 of us amateurs to the pavement of the park. 4 hours of fuss. I found edible roots, aromatic herbs and hardy vegetables in plastic wrappers and bottle caps. All of this was suitable for experimenting in an adventurous cook’s kitchen.
At least in theory. Sure there was food here, but very little of the practical kind. We collected fallen pods from Kentucky coffee trees. Its seeds can be used to brew decaffeinated coffee in place of your morning cup. So even if you’re willing to harvest enough, get rid of the toxic green gunk, and roast for hours, you really don’t. coffee. I packed sassafras root, once used to make root beer the old-fashioned way, and a few leaves of lettuce-flavoured violets, which in the right amount would make a small salad, together in a canvas bag. Two weeks later, I’m still wondering what to actually build with these strange new materials.
What I didn’t expect were all medicinal plants. Just minutes into the tour, we found enough pain relievers and anti-inflammatories in the wild to warrant a casual hike. Inside the cigarette butt was broadleaf plantain, an often-missed herb (unrelated to fruits like bananas) known to soothe mosquito bites.There was gem grass near the pissing puppy, which calmed me down Poison Ivy and Nettle Rash. A twig snapped from a black birch tree oozed wintergreen oil, also known as methyl salicylate, a relative of aspirin used in pain-relieving ointments such as Bengay and Icy Hot.
Interest in finding food has increased in recent years, partly due to the gourmetization of local dining and influencer-driven social media popularity. nettle chips and add From fir needles to granitas. Foraging lamps and morels have become very popular and can now be found on restaurant menus and in high-end grocery stores. But the plant-collecting boom has largely left behind what was historically the great attraction of scavenging plants and finding cures for minor ailments. Let me be clear, medicinal plants are unlikely to save lives in casual collectors, and there are no solid clinical data to support pharmaceuticals. However, some scientists believe it can be useful in a pinch. In some ways, finding a jewelweed stalk is more useful than finding a few leaves to substitute for lettuce.
That certainly was the case with Marla Emery, a scientific advisor to the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and a former US Forest Service research geographer who studies community foraging. A few years ago, when Emery developed giant oozing blisters on her legs after encountering poison ivy on a hunting trip, Emery visited a Scottish herbalist and applied for the medicine. Lobeliaan herb with pale purple flowers, and ass slippery elm, gave her calves a tree with slimy properties. Immediately, Emery told me, she felt a tingling sensation “like someone poured seltzer in the area” and within an hour the blisters healed.
Both plants have been traditionally used to treat skin conditions, and are particularly useful because they “support health and have medicinal properties,” she said, and are “very unlikely to cause addiction.” Stated. Anecdotes like this that demonstrate the profound utility of medicinal plants are common among botanists. “If you cut and put [broadleaf] It has plantains so you can see it up close,” Alex McAlvey, an ethnobotanist at the New York Botanical Garden, told me. For at least some species, “the evidence is in the pudding,” he says.
Foraging has long been practiced as a medical practice, and many modern medicines are derived from plants, but medicinal flora have largely been relegated to ‘traditional’ or ‘folk medicine’ status in the West. Still, Emery said its use continues in many communities, including immigrant groups who “had taken medicinal plants from their homelands and are trying to keep them going.” Chinese, Russians and some Latinx communities in the United States often take dandelion, a diuretic weed, to support kidney and urinary tract health, she added.
Along a concrete sidewalk in Prospect Park, the Brills pointed to a burdock grove.In addition to being a delicious potato duck, its roots are used in some cultures as detoxify body. Pineapple weed, found in things like baseball diamonds and pavement cracks, can soothe an upset stomach, Steve later told me. As with any foraging plant, scientific data on such claims are scarce, and any use of the plant for health purposes inevitably raises questions about its scientific credibility. Many medicinal plants encountered in the wild by casual gatherers are no Like all prescription drugs, it has been studied through rigorous clinical trials. Whether or not people will ultimately accept collecting medicinal plants will depend on how they believe that “we are creating evidence and truth,” McCalvey said. “A lot of people think, ‘Without clinical research, it’s not legal.’ Some people say, ‘My grandmother did it.’ While nothing beats clinical studies, it’s clear that some plants share valuable properties with certain drugs.Lamb quarters, which are spinach ducks, are traditionally rich in vitamin C. prevent scurvytraditionally used for urinary problems, nettle may: Finasteridea remedy for the prostate.
Unsurprisingly, the experts I spoke to unanimously recommended using foraged medicinal plants only for mild ailments. Gathering food comes with some risks. Just as delicious-looking mushrooms can make you sick, the same is true for medicinal gathering. Take established and reputable classes, use books, app Accurately identify plants, as many of them have dangerous analogues. For example, the edible angelica is easily confused with the poisonous hemlock famous for killing Socrates. Learning about dosage is also important. Even benign plants can become toxic if used in too high amounts, Emery warned. When working with medicinal plants, she “must know what she’s doing, and that’s not for casual TikTok posts,” she says. Novice collectors should stick to “gentle but unmistakably strong, easily identifiable herbs,” such as dandelions and violets, says McCalvey.
Following the Brills’ instructions, when I got home, I soaked the stems of the jewel beetles I had collected in witch hazel to make a soothing tincture. A few days later, I felt, or could have imagined, a wave of relief when I rubbed a little on the sunburn marks on my arm. Either way my joy was genuine. When we asked both tour participants and experts why foraged medicinal plants were important in a world where medicines with the same effects were readily available in pharmacies, they said that they were “empowering” and “satisfying”. But the explanation that struck a chord with me was that of Mr. McCalvey, who described it as “magic,” the ability to manipulate nature. of to heal nature.
When I got home from my tour and opened my grocery bag, I found some black birch twigs that still smelled of winter green. Coincidentally, it’s the only scent I’ve been craving throughout my 38 weeks of pregnancy (and will continue to do so). advised Avoid using medicated ointments containing oil. I smelled that twig deeply over and over again, reminding myself that it might come in handy months later. When teething toddlers are given black birch twigs to chew on, the gentle analgesic properties of low-dose wintergreen oil can help ease pain, Brill said. Suddenly their crying stopped. What could be more magical than that?
