Squantz Pond
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With its forests, lake, wetlands, fields, and edge habitats, this huge state park, a new venue for "Wildman," promises top notch summer foraging.
If it's been a wet summer, the mushrooming should be superb. We'll be looking for gourmet chanterelles, smoky-flavored black trumpets, mild, brittle russulas, savory boletes, gigantic chicken mushrooms, flavorful aborted entolomas, and more. And we'll probably find may fascinating and beautiful inedible or poisonous species as well. You never know what kind of mushrooms are around in any year until you look. |
 King Bolete Highly prized in Europe, this is simply one of the best mushrooms in the world. You can find it in large quantities in woods like the ones we'll be exploring in the summer if there's been lots of rain just before your search. |
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This is a great time for berries. Possibilities include flavorful elderberries, bittersweet black cherries, sweet-sour wineberries, intensely tasty blueberries and huckleberries, and wonderful blackberries.
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 Although they look like commercial blackberries, this common wild fruit is way more flavorful, and in a good year, you can collect large quantities using heavy duty work gloves, a container tied to your belt, and protective clothing. |
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Herbs and greens will abound in the forest, and at the edge between the woods and cultivated areas, and along trail sides. We may find spinach-flavored lamb's-quarters, wintergreen-flavored black birch, onion-flavored ramps, wonderful wild ginger, root beer-flavored sassafras, and much more. |
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The 3-hour walking tour begins at 1 PM, Sunday, August 17 at Squantz Pond State Park, 1/8 mile south of 178 Short Woods Rd. in New Fairfield, CT. Let the cops at the entrance know you're with the foraging group, and park near the park's entrance, not at the main parking lot.
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Call (914) 835-2153 at least 24 hours ahead to reserve a place.
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