Central Park
Saturday, August 23

Thanks to its varied habitats and combination of native and introduced species, this world-famous park overflows with wild food.

Wild fruit far surpassing anything available commercially also fills the park. Thickets will still be lined with sweet, juicy European cut-leaf blackberries.

This is the peak of the season for black cherries. This native species bears small, round, addictive, bittersweet fruits—great sweetened, thickened, and cooked into desserts.

Bushes of carnelian cherries (actually dogwoods, not true cherries) will be dropping the national fruit of Turkey just across from the Delacorte Theatre.

Elderberry bushes, prized in Europe but ignored in America (where no one respects their elders), grow in plain sight, completely overlooked.

Wild greens also thrive in meadows and along trail edges. We'll hunt for purslane, lamb's-quarters (a wild spinach), wood sorrel, sheep sorrel, poor man's pepper, lady's thumb, and Asiatic dayflower.

There will be culinary and medicinal herbs such as epazote, wild bay leaves, field garlic, sassafras, and spicebush leaves.

The group will even get to gather caffeine-free coffee, courtesy of the beans from the Kentucky coffee-tree.

Gourmet wild mushrooms pop up in Central Park after it rains. On this tour, we'll hunt for gigantic chicken mushrooms, brittle russulas, and prized bolete mushrooms.