Happy November, food & foraging friends!
As the late great Susan Sontag quipped, “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” Asheville, NC has long been on my travel to do list, and this past month I checked it off on an epic road trip to eat, drink and experience everything this mountain foodie town had to offer in a little over 48 hours.
Top of the Asheville list, of course, was to scope out the foraging culture. An online search led me to local foraging tour operator No Taste Like Home, and I signed me and my travel partner up for a foray in a private stretch of woods just outside the city.
Our guide, Christian, had a botany background, but cited this folksy definition of a weed: “A plant in the presence of a person with a problem.” After covering important ground like bear safety (file under: things you won’t hear about on my urban foraging tours), we were scouring the ground for two fallen treasures: the season’s few remaining chestnuts and the more copious black walnuts.
Christian showed us her quick and not so dirty walnut processing method, stomping and twisting off the hulls with her boot and then smashing the shell, which is stronger than tooth enamel, with a boulder. Several of us sampled the sweet nutmeat, but I was the sole brave soul to eat one of the living grubs inside. As Christian explained, these buggers are quite tasty and protein-rich, having eaten nothing but walnut their brief lives. Looking at me grub down, my friend Vura’s face read something like “I can’t take her anywhere.”
Following Christian down the wooded path, we enjoyed several familiar trail flavors, but I learned some new factoids along the way. For example. I’ve long extolled the virtues of rose hips as a Vitamin C source, but didn’t know that humans are one of the few animals who can’t manufacture their own supply of this essential vitamin. And spicebush is a native staple of our neck of the East Coast too, but I never knew it was in the avocado family, nor did I ever think to use it in a DIY cleaning product or in a savory application like a bay leaf, as Christian suggested. We also nibbled on Carolina hemlock needles, enjoying their rosemary twang; the sweet-tart native Fox grape; and the twigs of a sweet birch with their distinctive wintergreen flavor.
At the conclusion of the guided portion, which ended at an oak tree bearing some baby maitake, we were let loose to forage on our own for a few.
I must pause here to say that the Monday prior, my BFFs (best foraging friends) and I had hit the jackpot on a stretch of trail a short bus ride from my NW DC home. In less than an hour, we found seven choice edible mushroom species, most in mint condition.
I gave away many pounds of chicken of the woods, after freezing some for Indian butter chicken and churning the rest into chicken of the woods shrimp etouffee, chicken fried rice, chicken pasta sauce and chicken tacos. The huge cluster of hens we found made it into several other dishes, including a delicious roasted hen and feta. I must also mention the beautiful flush of brick caps Aaron found. The internet will tell you it’s a meh edible, but if you hadn’t noticed, the internet often lies. I loved this, simply sauteed with butter and herbs and enjoyed on top of pasta.
Left/top: The author and her co-pilot (showing off her new vegan cheese beanie), surrounded by photos of our foraging-to-table experience, otherwise known as “find dining.” A farmers market offered some processed wild goodies like black walnuts, but then you’d miss out on the grubs.
Right/bottom: Back at home, trail eats from hen, chicken, puffballs, honeys and brick caps filled my belly for days. I could tell you where, but then I’d have to kill you.
Cut back to the Asheville woods, where try as I might, I couldn’t even find a goddamn turkey tail. There’s no place like home, I suppose.
We ended our adventure putting all of our finds on a blanket and ticking them off of a handy checklist Christian provided before divvying them up among the group. Meanwhile Christian’s sous-forager had prepared a lovely amuse bouche on the spot from some hen and chestnut sprinkled with sumac and ramp salt.
The best twist to the tour was a partnership the company had with several forest-to-table restaurants to provide a free appetizer custom made from up to three foraged ingredients, which each party could select from our blanket full of goodies. Vura and I opted for hen of the woods, hemlock needles and black walnuts, which we hand delivered to Rhubarb, an award-winning restaurant in downtown Asheville.
The meal was decadent – smoked Carolina short rib with field pea and peanut cassoulet, Alabama white BBQ sauce, collard green kimchi, and crispy onions was billed as a small plate – but our foraged app made it truly one of a kind. One of Rhubarb’s chefs came out to explain what she’d created with our finds, while serving us a simple tea from the hemlock twigs we supplied: a cabbage roll stuffed with mushroom duxelles and black walnuts, in a rich pomegranate molasses sauce.
It was an incredible end to an incredible trip whose highlights I covered on Instagram in more picturesque detail. (To take one example, we went on a bender at one of Asheville’s dozen farmers markets, buying stalks of lemongrass tall as a toddler, Antiguan chai and chai Jun, macarons with pawpaws and two kinds of persimmon, the best vegan cheese ever made, lamb and sauerkraut pie with peach chutney, sourwood honey, and other purchases I blacked out but my credit card remembered.) Not everything showed up on my credit card: I did forage red torches of sumac behind an urban winery I churned into spice and sumac-ade back home.
Everyone we met in Asheville, from artists to vintners and brewers, seemed to be a forager. It’s one of the best things about foraging: you are part of a global tribe you can connect with anywhere you go, through shared love and knowledge of wild foods.
There really is no place, or taste, like home, though. Next week I’ll join my friend chef Julian for a special Friendsgiving featuring his famous roast suckling pig, and we’ll make cornelian cherry wine together. He’s bringing his black walnut press too, and maybe will be so lucky to find a few walnut grubs.
Wishing a happy Thanksgiving season to you and yours!
Wildly yours,
April
PS: I also just returned from yet another epic journey to the Utah canyonlands for a four-night stay at luxury resort Amangiri, where I didn’t forage much but my own earplugs from a cottony plant near a gorgeous slot canyon (true story). Check out my IG posts for some highlights.
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