Tarrywile Park
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Here's an urban park with many varied habitats that "Wildman" will be exploring in conjunction with the Danbury Recreation Department. Cattails will be a highlight of the tour. This common water plant features cucumber-flavored shoots, immature flower heads similar to corn-on-the-cob, and copious amounts of golden pollen you can use in place of flour. Wild greens could also be thriving in fields and disturbed habitats. We'll look for lamb's-quarters (a wild spinach), sour-flavored wood sorrel and sheep sorrel, spicy poor man's pepper and field pennycress, delectable common milkweed, hot hedge mustard, tasty pokeweed, and string bean-flavored Asiatic dayflower. They all have their own flavors, and make great additions to salads and vegetable dishes. We'll also be collecting cattails, water plants with shoots that taste like cucumber. |
 Pokeweed Shoot Prized by country people in the south, this especially tasty green, the pufferfish of the plant world, is poisonous if you use the wrong part or prepare it improperly. |
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In addition, we may find culinary and medicinal herbs such as black birch, mullein, yarrow, sassafras, and spicebush leaves.
Most roots go out of season by the start of May, but burdock root, which tastes like a combination of potato and artichoke, stays in season from spring to fall, and it grows in Tarrywile Park too. At this time of year, you can also peel the immature flower stalk, parboil it, and use it like artichoke hearts. This is an excellent park for wild mushrooms, and with enough rain beforehand, we might find choice spring species such as fairy ring mushrooms, chicken mushrooms, wine-cap stropharias, and dryad's saddle. |
 These flavorful lawn mushrooms shrivel up when they dry out, but reconstitute after it rains. |
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The 3-hour walking tour begins at 1 PM, Saturday, May 3, at Tarrywile Park in Danbury, CT, at the entrance near the barn, not at the main entrance.
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Call (914) 835-2153 at least 24 hours in advance to reserve a place.
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