[Malachai Constant]

Minors lettuce is ok kind of bland but nothing toxic looks much like it. Avoid parsley looking things especially with lots of small white compound flowers (carrot family) that is where Hemlock resides and some not quite as deadly but still toxic plants

[Mike E.]

If you really want to be able to eat in the wild you should see what the native people were eating. Search on "ethnobotany" and you'll get a long list of things to check into. If you're over on the East side you could sample elderberry, service berry, and wild rose hips,(just the outer part as the seeds are really nasty). Juniper berries are o.k. when they're ripe and the very fresh, bright green tips of fir, spruce and pine are pretty good, (make sure they're very young and tender). Fireweed shoots are good when cooked. The premier wild food in my opinion has got to be the various mushrooms. It takes some study to make sure that you're getting the right ones and you sure don't want to be eating the wrong ones, but they are so good that it's well worth figuring out which are edible.

[joeman3285]

Awesome, Thanks for the info everyone!

[pimaCanyon]

leaves from Avalanche and Glacier Lilies are edible. My favorite tasting green snack while on the trail are leaves from Jeffrey Shooting Star.

[Hooberhobber]

[sarbar]

[Ski]

Blackberries ( wild, Himalaya, Cut-Leaf ); huckleberries ( red or blue ); Salmonberries; Thimbleberries; Salal berries - all good right off the vine ( or bush. ) Oregon Grape; Elderberry: great jelly, lousy off the bush. As previously stated: if they make you gag, they probably aren't good to eat. Wood Sorrel: ( looking at photos on the web, I'm referring to "Common Wood Sorrel, unless I'm mistaken ) great stuff, but according to the material posted on some websites, not good in great quantity. I'll shove a few of them in my mouth on a trail now and then to keep my mouth wet- they're so sour they make you salivate. Stinging nettle: not too bad cooked. Kind of like spinach. More hassle than it was worth. I'd rather have the spinach. Bracken Fern: young fiddleheads are pretty tasty steamed. Some claim they're poisonous. ( Native Americans at Ozette harvested the root of the plant as a food source. ) Field Guide: I have a little pocket-size "Pacific Coast Berry Finder" by Glen Keator, PhD © 1978 Nature Study Guild. Available at Kalaloch R.S., among other places.

[TrailPair]

A warning about elderberries. They can have an adverse effect on some folks....but not affect others at all. A couple years ago, We picked a bunch of them and took them home to make smoothies. The smoothies were quirte tasty....but a few hours later, they "flushed" my system. But there was no bad effect at all for K.

[sarbar]

What can also come into play is if you grew up on the item - desensitizing in a way. I know people who at 35 had never eaten a wild berry - one guy I hiked with claimed up and down I was poisoning him with red Huckleberries below Mt. Hood - until I ate them first But...over indulge and that person is going to have a gut ache and most likely the Hiker 5K later that day or the next day. If one has never eaten it before and goes crazy, it can do real numbers on the system.

[Malachai Constant]

Red elderberries contain small amounts of compounds which can release cyanide (stems and roots contain more). If you cut them up you can get a contact dermatitis similar to poison oak. The compounds are destroyed by cooking.

[jenjen]

[Chief Joseph]

We found a downed old growth cedar up behind Silverton that had over 5 lbs of chicken of the woods mushrooms. My son picked them but I was a bit skeptical, but tonight he made a spaghetti sauce and added about a pound and if you didn't know better you would swear it was chicken, turned out great! This thread is funny, even the angry hiking individual posted!

[Chief Joseph]

[Ski]

Oregon Grape Jelly 2019

it's excellent. really interesting flavor. do not put too much sugar in it!

it will take about a week for your hands to look normal again

requires one of these gizmos:

Foley Food Mill

I only clicked on this thread because I saw "wild edibles" and I thought you were talking about...

coming soon to a second-growth hemlock stand near you!

[cdestroyer]

on hikes in north north cascades I have eaten trail plants. miners lettuce, sheep sorrel, leek, cattail, fireweed and taken franklins grouse, and trout(illegal perhaps but a study in wildlands foods). and I would not touch a shroom even if you paid me(hate them things)