Prospect Park
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A great abundance of edible and medicinal wild plants and mushrooms makes this park a great place for foraging in the fall. Burdock root, an expensive detoxifying herb sold in health food stores, abounds in cultivated areas throughout the park. You can also use it as a superb vegetable.
Wild carrots are a relatively new addition to the park, first having appeared in 2003. More chewy than their commercial counterparts, they're superior in carrot cakes, soups, and cookies. Another new root vegetable growing near the carrots is common evening primrose. This peppery and sweet flavored native root thickens soups and stews, like okra. The root of sassafras makes a great herb tea. You can also use it to make root beer, or as a sweet seasoning. Common spicebush (which also has allspice-like berries) and ground ivy (a gentle herbal diuretic) provide still more beverages. Everyone will also find plenty of leafy green vegetables, such as hedge mustard, goutweed, lamb's-quarters (a wild spinach), chickweed (which tastes like corn), Asiatic dayflower (which tastes like string beans), field garlic (garlicky, of course), and mild-flavored lady's thumb. Nuts are at their peak in the fall. Black walnuts, richer-tasting than their commercial relatives, litter the sidewalks. Try using them to make Black Walnut-Carob Cake. The nuts of the ginkgo tree are also delicious, although the surrounding fruit smells awful. Health food stores sell extracts of this relic from the days of the dinosaurs to improve circulation and memory. Just discard the smelly fruit, toast the thin-shelled nuts, crack them open, and eat as is, or add to Asian recipes. |
Gingko Nut and Leaf This living fossil was planted in cities throughout the world after a few trees that had eluded ice age era extinction were found cultivated in Chinese monasteries. |
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Gourmet fruits are represented by sweet wild "raisins," as well as berries of the hawthorn tree, a relative of the apple, used in herbal medicine as a heart tonic. There will even be pods of the Kentucky coffee-tree, with seeds you can brew into the world's best caffeine-free coffee substitutes. Spectacular mushrooms may also abound at this time. Huge hen of the woods (sold in health food stores as maitake), gigantic chicken mushrooms (which taste like chicken), golden-brown honey mushrooms, multitudes of pear-shaped puffballs, and savory wine-cap stropharia mushrooms may pop up anywhere. |
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The 4-hour walking tour begins at 11:45 AM, Saturday, October 23, at Prospect Park's Grand Army Plaza entrance.
Call (914) 835-2153 at least 24 hours ahead to reserve a place. |
