Appalachian Trail
Sunday, August 24

Today we explore America's most famous hiking trail, which runs for hundreds of miles from Maine to Georgia. Our stretch, running through Pawling, NY, is loaded with wild foods.

As soon as we depart from the railroad station where we meet, we'll find the huge leaves of burdock, with an edible root that tastes like potatoes. Nearby, we'll find loads of wild parsnips, garden escapees that taste even better than their commercial forerunners, plus lots of wild carrots.

Other common herbs and greens we can expect include lamb's-quarters, yarrow, purslane, sheep sorrel, wood sorrel, poor man's pepper, sassafras, and black birch.

We'll also find lots of jewelweed, a major medicinal herb with juice that relieves a variety of skin irritations, from insect bites to preventing poison ivy rash. In addition to the common species, spotted jewelweed, which has an orange flower, this is the only tour where we'll also find pale jewelweed, with its yellow flower.

This is a great place for wild fruit. We'll be looking for elderberries, black cherries, spiceberries, and blackberries.

If it has rained beforehand, the mushrooming should be as great as it was in past years. We may find large quantities of delectable parasol mushrooms, gourmet boletes, brittle russulas, smoky-flavored black trumpets, luscious meadow mushrooms, mild-flavored coral mushrooms, meaty hygrophorus milky mushrooms, and gigantic chicken mushrooms. Other unexpected species could easily surprise us.