For this nature lover, the time is ripe for something wild
LINCOLN -- It's one of the hottest days of the summer. Forager Russ Cohen, bearded and burly, licking sweet dewberry juice from his fingers, is sweating through his polo shirt and baseball cap. The ripe berries look and taste like the best blackberries you've ever had, and are just one of more than 150 edible wild species growing in Massachusetts. Cohen knows -- and has eaten -- all of them.
But this observant forager can find something to eat just about anywhere. Last week, on a walk around Blue Heron Organic Farm in Lincoln, Cohen spotted everything from black cherries to Concord grapes to wintergreen. Cohen says that any sunny spot, from shaggy un-mowed meadows to the edges of soccer fields, rivers, or railroad tracks, is probably just right for stalking the wild whatever. Organic farms are also great spots to forage, but wild plant hunting can take place in urban parks, along tree-lined city sidewalks, and all over suburbia.
Cohen, 50, is the rivers advocate for the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game and the author of "Wild Plants I Have Known . . . And Eaten," published by the Essex County Greenbelt Association. He grew up in Weston and says that his professional forager training is limited to a single botany course that he took at Vassar College 30 years ago.
From early spring until late into the fall, Cohen leads edible wild plant walks around New England, and with his wife, Ellen, a massage therapist, he cooks, cans, and stocks an entire basement freezer with wild foods that include steamed stinging nettle greens (avoid any contact with skin before they're cooked); white oak acorn flour; cattail pollen; shelled black walnuts; pokeweed shoots; and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms.
Right now, even during a dog days foraging lull in Eastern Massachusetts, Cohen still expects to find a dozen or more species. A few yards from his parked car he spots his first edible plant -- wood sorrel, an annual or perennial that resembles clover and tastes like lemons. As he's picking the tender leaves he notices some black cherries on the ground, then looks up and sees the whole cherry tree heavy with ripe fruit; it's just out of reach. He snaps a low twig from a spruce sapling and pulls down the fruity cherry branch. The fruit is small and dark and tastes completely different than the supermarket variety. Cohen says that some trees bear sweeter cherries than others. He uses the best ones in sorbets, jams, and jellies.
Refreshed by the cherries, Cohen stomps along the edges of the field and into the woods, pointing out this wild thing and that. There are lamb's quarters and wild mustard greens for salads, milkweed pods that can be cooked like green beans, wintergreen for sun tea, ridiculously good dewberries, and ground cherries that taste just like tiny yellow Sun Gold tomatoes.
Earlier in the day Cohen was out hunting for chanterelles, but found just one dried-up runt. He says that it's not a good year for the fragrant, apricot-colored mushrooms. "Chanterelles are loyal to places where they have grown in the past," he says. "If the conditions are right -- wet enough, hot enough, and shady enough -- you can expect the mushrooms to be in the same place, on the same day each year."
In the market, chanterelles cost more than $30 per pound, but Cohen never sells any of his bounty. "I'm profoundly ambivalent about the commercial possibilities of foraging," he says. "I have a day job so I don't have to be a mercenary at all. And I prefer not to have an exploitative relationship with the plants."
At the edge of Blue Heron's pumpkin patch Cohen spots some Japanese knotweed. It's too mature to harvest (the shoots and tender young stalks are what he would be after), but it's still worth noticing. Clever foragers are always looking, even if the plant is past its prime. They're marking the spot. "Some of the best stuff is only visible when it's out of season. So I see it, I remember where it was, and I wait," says Cohen. Some plants, such as dandelions, become bitter or unappealing with age, but remain edible. Others, like pokeweed, become poisonous as they mature. Cohen says that with the exception of poisonous mushrooms (many of which taste very good), the general rule about wild edibles is that if it tastes good, it probably is good. It's best to forage with a guide.
The Cohens live in Arlington in a small house with a small yard. "We don't like to take up too much space," he says. The couple has a backyard garden where they harvest edible weeds like purslane and amaranth along with arugula and tomatoes. Russ Cohen says that only about 10 percent of their diet comes from wild plants, but that there is something foraged in almost every meal. To cook their bounty, they adapt conventional recipes. "There aren't really any special, elaborate, or ornate preparations," he says. Most of the time Russ does the picking and Ellen takes care of the cooking. But Russ can hold his own at the stove; some favorite dishes are cream of stinging nettle soup, strawberry-knotweed pie, and black locust fritters.
The couple's foraging isn't limited to fields and woods. Each year Russ Cohen buys a clamming license to dig around Buzzards Bay. In the summer and fall they slurp raw littlenecks and cherrystones right on the flats. From this, Russ makes linguini with clam sauce. From the salt marshes and landward edges of beaches in Essex County, they bring home sea rocket, glasswort, bayberries, and beach plums; in Quebec they pick mountain cranberries; at his parents' house in coastal Maine, wild blueberries and fall mushrooms.
Even after years of finding outdoor treasures, Cohen seems genuinely moved by the ephemeral beauty of wild edibles and the sense of place that he experiences by gathering them. "I love to walk and I love to eat," he says. "But it's more than just sensual pleasure. Nature is my church." 