Central Park
Sunday, June 15

Central Park, always a great park for foraging, is spectacular around the beginning of summer.

The wild fruits alone make the park worth visiting. Two species of mulberries, red and white, and their pink hybrid, drop berries everywhere. You only need to position a drop cloth under a branch and shake to harvest a year's supply. These berries are perfect in any fruit recipe. They make great jam, and they freeze well too.

Because the bushes get full sunlight, the juneberries (serviceberries) are also spectacular. With a sweet flavor like blueberries, apples, and almonds, it's a testament to our disregard for nature that no one ever cultivated this top-notch fruit.

Wild herbs and vegetables also thrive throughout the park. We'll be looking for poor man's pepper, sheep sorrel, wood sorrel, lamb's-quarters, epazote, wild ginger, greenbrier, lady's thumb, purslane, and Asiatic dayflower.

We'll also find daylily flowers. Sold as "golden needles" in Chinatown, the large flowers, which live for only 1 day, have a sweet-pungent flavor. They're excellent in soups and salads, and you can even stuff them.