Simpler Living
By Fiona Wagner • Bankrate.com

I was sitting at my desk last weekend when suddenly, I heard the front door slam shut.

"Mumm-eeee!" hollered my 4-year-old daughter, Ella, as she came thundering through the house.

Seconds later, she thudded into my office. "Guess what, Mama," she said while trying to catch her breath. "Jack found a brain in the front lawn. And Daddy said we could eat it!"

While I once might have been shocked by such a discovery, this time I only smiled, while revising our dinner plans to incorporate my son's find. Because hunting for "brains" has become something of a fall family activity.

We found our first "brain" last September, only a few months after moving to our farm in eastern Ontario. It was nestled in the grass halfway between the shed and the vegetable garden. Of course, it wasn't a brain at all, but a puffball mushroom that was past its prime and looking a bit mottled and lumpy.

But the nickname stuck and with it, our delight in finding wild edibles that would otherwise cost big bucks in specialty grocery stores.

Wild delicacies are all around us
While puffballs can range in size from one to 20 inches in diameter and can be pear-shaped, oval or round, my son's recent find was about the size of a football. It's true that mushroom identification can be notoriously tricky -- and fatal if not done properly -- but puffballs have several distinct features: They don't have a stalk, cap or gills, and when cut open, their interior flesh is solid and white. Once we were confident our find was indeed edible, we sautéed it in butter and garlic. Delicious.

But our finds have gone beyond puffballs -- we're constantly discovering a new world of wild edibles growing in all corners of our property. From the woods to the fields and even our own backyard, we find such delicacies as sorrel, wild garlic, fiddleheads, walnuts, loganberries, daylilies and even purslane.

But foraging is not just for country dwellers: Wild edibles can be found in sidewalk cracks, parks, ravines and backyards. Consider the humble dandelion, which is commonly viewed as a nuisance. But as writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "A weed is a plant whose virtues we have not yet discovered." Like spinach or celery, dandelion is rich in vitamins and minerals and it can be boiled, baked, sautéed, and the greens can be added to a salad. Suddenly, foe becomes food.

Of course, foraging for food isn't a new activity. Long before TV dinners and take out, humans were gatherers, as well as hunters. But as farm yields increased and food supplies became more reliable, there was less need for foraging: Seeds could be planted, crops cultivated and food harvested.

Fast forward to the late 20th century, when modern efficiencies such as refrigerators, freezers, air freight (for shipping food) and supermarkets almost eliminated the need to forage all together. But today, a growing number of savvy foodies and locavore chefs are rediscovering the joys of cooking with wild edibles such as purslane, wild leeks and morel mushrooms.

Fiona Wagner is a freelance writer in Hastings County, Ont.