Foraging

Recently, we came across a giant puffball mushroom (Calvatia Gigantea), a tasty edible, growing here in Wallingford, over by Eastern and 42nd.

Well, we were pretty sure it was a giant puffball, and not the deadly amanita, with which is occasionally confused, but just to make sure, we snapped a picture with our iPhone and sent it off to our friend Matt. Matt’s response was as succinct as it was wise: “Never identify mushrooms via MMS”. True dat.

Perhaps we’d be better equipped the next time we came across a wild edible if we scooted over to Wide World Books and Maps (4411 Wallingford Ave N)  tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb 16th at 7 pm for Langdon Cook’s talk Fat of the Land:  Adventures of a 21^st Century Forager:

In his recently published book, Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21^st Century Forager, author Langdon Cook crafts together delicious menus from wild nettles, freshly dug clams, berries, mushrooms, and Dungeness crab.  Through trial and error, along with years spent experimenting, Cook finds the literal “fruits” of his labors both nutritious and rewarding—especially when he’s spent the better part of a day in pursuit of a meal.  Fat of the Land describes foraging, not as a throwback to our hunter-gatherer past, but as a way to reconnect with the landscape, and appreciate the bounties of the water and earth around us.   Whether he’s free diving in the icy Puget Sound in hopes of spearing a snaggletooth lingcod, or tempting fate by eating questionable mushrooms, Cook finds adventure in every attempt.  Cook left his role as senior book editor at Amazon.com in 2004, to pursue life in a cabin off the grid with his wife and son.  Now a freelance writer and editor, Lang has written for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Outside, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Fly Fisherman, the Stranger, Seattle Metropolitan, and Conservation Magazine.