Ever wondered what it would be like to forage in your own urban environment? How hard would it be to find edible foods in your neighborhood? Urban Edibles is a Portland, Oregon based non-profit that is taking the guess work out of finding wild edible foods around the city.
As described on their website,
>Urban Edibles is a cooperative network of wild food foragers. By creating awareness about what is available in our neighborhoods, we hope to re-establish the connection between people, environment and food.
With their interactive wild foods maps, you can search for plants by location, category or type of edible, and contribute to the resource by adding something you saw around town. They also host an online Wiki that is an open source encyclopedia dedicated to edible, medicinal or otherwise noteworthy plants.
Want to start something similar in your town? Urban Edibles offers tips for scouting and sourcing plants:
>Take a buddy, bring a notepad or smart phone for notes and go slow.
Write down the source type, street address or other location information.
Include any relevant details like: What does it taste like? and How accessible or bountiful it is?
And most importantly of all, whenever foraging for edibles, be wary of poisonous look-alikes. As the Urban Edibles disclaimer explains:
>Remember, the paramount rule of harvesting wild edibles is: “If in doubt, don’t!”
